After months of contention, the California School Employees Association and the Citrus district reached a tentative agreement on a new contract on May 6.
The California School Employees Association is the union that represents Citrus’ classified employees. Classified employees are those working at Citrus who do not fall under the category of either faculty, like professors, or administration.
During the Board of Trustees meeting on March 19, two of Citrus’ classified employees spoke about their disappointment with their salaries and how the negotiations between their union and the district to raise them were going.
What’s the issue?
Lori Jean Cuccio, an accounting technician who has been working at Citrus since October 2017, said in an interview a week after the meeting that Citrus is struggling to keep up with the wages given to fast food workers.
“To think that you could work here for 24 years and walk across to McDonald’s, or any other fast food restaurant, and make more money, full-time with benefits at an entry-level job just shows that the college isn’t respecting our value as employees that have served the college for a long time,” Cuccio said.
The lowest pay rate, for range 0 on the classified employee’s 2023 salary schedule, which has been effective since July 1, 2023, is $11.90 per hour.
Starting April 1, fast food employees in California covered by AB 1228 must be paid at least $20 per hour.
Cuccio said the low base salary affects everyone on the schedule because everyone else’s salary is compounded off the base salary, regardless if that base is below California’s minimum wage of $16 per hour.
Each classified employee’s pay range is based on their title’s classification. Every year, they move up one step, which represents a 5% salary increase, on the schedule till their sixth year.
From there, employees receive a one-range increase after years 11, 16, 21, 26, and 31 at Citrus.
Cathy Day has been an administrative assistant in the Language Arts and Library division at Citrus for the past 24 years.
“Oftentimes, they (the district) get around that (reclassification), by at the bottom of virtually every classified description, it says, ‘And any other duties needed to be completed for your tasks,’” Day said. “So basically, what they’ll say is, well, you know, you’re not really working out of class, because it falls under this, even though it requires much more technical knowledge.”
One of Day’s complaints was that she said didn’t understand why Citrus’ reserve was larger than it’s ever been in her time at Citrus while her pay has seen such little change.
To see a breakdown of Citrus’ reserve fund and how it compares to other California community colleges, click here.
Why now?
The CSEA’s contracts with the district are renegotiated every three years. Cuccio said at the end of 2020, the CSEA started negotiating for a contract that would start in January 2021.
Day and Cuccio both said the CSEA hesitated to request raises during the pandemic due to the many unknowns at the time.
After Citrus received funding from the federal government during the pandemic, Cuccio said full-time employees got a $1,500 share out of the $27 million the college received, while employees at Mt. SAC got $8,000.
David Colindres, a senior buyer at Citrus’ Purchasing Department, is the president for the Citrus’ chapter of the CSEA and is now in his second year in the position.
Colindres had no immediate response for the Clarion regarding the tentative agreement.
Colindres, who has been at Citrus since 2005, said hiring has been harder since the pandemic and multiple job classification needs to be updated to reflect their current roles.
“I have faith in my team that they can get on the same page as the district,” Colindres said. “Then it’ll benefit everybody across the board.”
Who else is involved?
Dave Brown, bargaining chair for the Citrus College Faculty Association and an automotive technology faculty member, said he is not directly involved in the CSEA’s negotiations but does try to offer advice where he can.
Brown said he empathizes with the classified employees and their struggle with their negotiations.
“I find myself embarrassed for the district that they have allowed the CSEA’s salary schedule to deteriorate the way they have, “ Brown said. “Our classified employees perform all the legwork that makes things happen at Citrus College, and they’ve fallen so far behind that if you look at their salary schedule, they have cells that are actually blacked out because they would be illegal.
“ … And so I find it embarrassing that they’ve allowed that to happen, and the district says, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter because nobody’s employed in those classifications.’ But to my mind it makes me feel like everybody else’s classification is now devalued, and I feel like that’s really unfortunate.”
The Clarion reached out to all five Board of Trustees members for comment during the negotiations.
Board President Anthony Contrearas, board Clerk/Secretary Mary Ann Lutz and Trustees Patricia Rasmussen and Laura Bollinger replied to emails but all refused the requests for an interview out of respect for the negotiations and those on both sides.
Board Vice President Cheryl Alexander did not reply after multiple attempts to contact her.
After the agreement’s ratification, Claudette Dain, Citrus’ vice president of finance and administrative services, said the agreement is expected to be presented to the Board of Trustees during the meeting on June 18.
The meeting will start at 4:15 p.m. in the Administration Building.
Excellent coverage of a complex issue. The graphs are very powerful and I found the linked related article and original sources super informative.