New CCA report details gains by local chapters.
Pressured by dedicated faculty negotiators, more and more Community Colleges throughout California are joining other employers in offering domestic partner benefits to their employees.
Almost 20 community colleges in California now offer domestic partner benefits - mostly as a result of bargaining between faculty and administrations. Though it hasn't always been an easy task, negotiating teams at various campuses have been able to use a variety of strategies to gain the benefits.
"We're not really on the cutting edge here. In fact we're behind the curve. Already, 3,000 companies in the United State are offering these benefits, and the list is growing every week," said CCA Board member and Mt. San Antonio College instructor Carolyn Inmon, who headed up a CCA committee that prepared a report, "Negotiating for Domestic Partner Benefits in California Community Colleges."
Comprehensive report offered
The new CCA report provides a comprehensive look at domestic partner benefits, what they are, how to bargain them, who has them, and sample language. Also serving as authors are CCA Board Members Cathy Crane-McCoy of Long Beach City College; Elizabeth Hodge of Gavilan College; and Don Mathrole of Butte College. In addition, special contributions were also made by Cliff Burns of Sierra College; Jim McBride of San Joaquin Delta; and Ron Reel of Mt. San Antonio.
While they may not be on the vanguard, faculty negotiating teams are making inroads in obtaining health benefits for domestic partners and "significant others." For some, it came easy.
"It couldn't have been more painless," said Jim McBride. "The health consortium we belong to, the Central Valley Trust, decided to add domestic partners to the coverage for all member schools, and so we were automatically covered without or school having to do anything except notify its employees of the new coverage."
Nor did the number of employees who signed up for the health benefits exactly break the bank.
"A year after this was implemented, only seven people had even registered for it," out of a campus of 700 faculty and staff, McBride said.
Speech instructor Ron Reel suggested that bargaining teams prepare in much the same way that attorneys do for answers to tricky questions.
He and Inmon, in fact, included a chart in the report listing employer arguments with correlating answers from the union.
In Mt. SAC's negotiations, the administration complained first that the benefits would be too expensive, and then that no one would use them, Reel said.
"I actually wanted them to go toward the 'more expensive' argument because all data shows that domestic partner benefits are less expensive than health benefits for heterosexual couples," he said, noting that childbirth costs tend to skew the costs for heterosexual couples.
Mt. SAC obtained what their faculty calls "significant other" benefits after first taking a survey that put such questions forth as "Should all faculty be treated equally?" Based on survey results, the bargaining team was able to present the benefit proposal in terms of enforcing non-discrimination laws.
Ferocious negotiating team
"We tried to take it out of being a 'homosexual' issue and channeled it into an equity issue," Reel said, noting the strategy was successful. "Our negotiating team was ferocious with the board of trustees."
Sierra College faculty first negotiated bereavement leave for roommates in 1994 before going on to bargaining full domestic partnership benefits.
"The second part took several years because we had to wait in order to show that the bereavement policy was not a costly benefit," said Cliff Burns.
Because Sierra's benefits are based on a composite plan that covers the entire family, the health provider was able to extend the benefits to domestic partners without any major costs.
Although more campuses are offering domestic partner benefits, some are remarkably silent on the issue.
Elizabeth Hodge, CCA board member and Gavilan College philosophy instructor, has excellent health insurance coverage, but is unable to offer it to her partner, who suffers from diabetes and has an inadequate health plan.
"For the past year, my partner has had a lot of health problems and I can't do a thing about it," Hodge said.
Hopefully, however, as more associations negotiate these benefits, it will become easier for those remaining.
The CCA's "Negotiating for Domestic Partner Benefits in California Community Colleges" is available through the CCA Office in Citrus Heights. Please call 916-426-4207 to obtain a copy.