Kaplan makes small agreements but refuses teachers basic rights
08/28/2013
After over a month lapse in negotiations, the Guild and Kaplan International Center’s (KIC) negotiating teams sat down at the table last Thursday to resume discussions on many of the outstanding proposals such as sick time, leaves of absence, safety and security, and bereavement leave. Despite reaching some tentative agreements at the session, KIC continued to repeat their mantra of “not interested” when it came to giving teachers basic rights.
PAY:
Although the Guild tried to reintroduce discussion about wages, KIC’s bargaining team stated they had “no change” and offered no counter-proposal despite our last wage proposal which came closer to meet KIC. At the July 18 session, we reached a tentative agreement with management: accepting their starting rate of $18 per hour for new hires and temporary employees. However, we only accepted this rate for the 6 month probationary period, after which the employee would jump to a higher pay rate. Although they “appreciated” this proposal which met them on their starting rate, they were unwilling to further discuss wages, a central issue for Guild members.
BEREAVEMENT LEAVE:
KIC continues to refuse to give part-timers paid bereavement leave – a standard in the Guild’s other contracts. In their proposal, they offer full-timers up to 5 days of paid bereavement leave for immediate family yet they won’t even offer a single day to part-time employees who make up more than 90% of their workforce.
SICK TIME:
After much back and forth about sick time in the last few sessions, KIC's last proposal offers a complicated system for accruing sick hours. After we discussed KIC's proposal at length during a caucus, we offered KIC a simple system of awarding 40 hours of sick time for part-timers and 48 hours for full-timers at the beginning of each year with no carryover in lieu of employees having to earn 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked. This would be straightforward for the employee and would simplify Kaplan's record keeping of sick time. The management reps said they will get back to us.
SAFETY AND SECURITY:
The Guild and KIC reached a tentative agreement on the entirety of the Safety and Security Article which addresses workplace surveillance and drug testing.
We've come a long way from KIC's initial proposal which had both the right to install cameras everywhere except the bathroom and randomly drug test employees. KIC has now agreed to inform the Guild prior to installing any new surveillance equipment and new equipment will only be installed in the event of an investigation. Once the investigation has been completed, KIC has agreed to remove the surveillance equipment. A full agreement was also reached on KIC’s right to establish a drug testing program. If a program is to be implemented, KIC must negotiate with the Guild on the terms of the program, and employees could only be tested if there is reasonable suspicion. The program would also include an Employee Assistance Program and a period of time for employees who test positive for drugs or alcohol to correct the problem.
PERSONAL LEAVES OF ABSENCE:
The Guild agreed to KIC's proposal to continue with the 90 days leaves of absence for both full-timers and part-timers until they change their company-wide policy to 30 days leave provided that they include a clause which would allow managers to allow longer leaves at their discretion. This would allow employees to continue to take advantage of maybe the only benefit of working at Kaplan: the ability to take off extended periods of time.
STALLED PROGRESS:
Although both parties were able to come to some agreements across the table, KIC continues to skirt around the outstanding issues such as wages, vacation pay, holiday pay and health insurance. They also hold steadfast to several unreasonable, and even inhumane, positions as illustrated in their refusal to pay part-timers for bereavement leave. In addition, KIC has proposed an employee who is absent from work for three or more days without notifying KIC, will be deemed as voluntarily resigning on the fourth day of such an absence without recourse to the grievance and arbitration process. The Guild has brought to their attention that certain circumstances, such as hospitalization, might make it impossible for an employee to contact KIC but management did not seem to care. Not only would the employee lose their job, but because they “voluntarily resigned,” the employee would be ineligible for unemployment and the Guild would not be able to arbitrate the issue under management’s proposal.
We hope to hear more from KIC about some of the key items in the next bargaining session, scheduled for Friday, September 20, 2013.
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Corresponding update from Management:
POSITIVE TALKS, SOME PROGRESS
In a bargaining session last Thursday, KIC and the Guild continued to make some progress in a few areas, and talks were professional and constructive. We reached one more tentative agreement last week: the parties agreed to a provision that KIC had proposed on “Safety and Security,” which allows KIC to take appropriate measures, in consultation with the Guild, to protect the safety and security of KIC’s employees and property.
On the economic front, KIC and the Guild have also made some limited progress:
Wages: After much discussion, KIC and the Guild agreed in July to set the “contract minimum” rate for teaching hours at $18/hour. That means that KIC can hire new teachers at that rate in the future, while preserving the right to pay teachers above that rate based on skills and experience. The parties remain apart on other wage provisions, including the non-teaching prep time rate, which KIC has proposed to increase to $9/hour from the current $7.25/hour.
Benefits: The parties have spent a lot of time discussing benefits for part-time employees. After KIC made a proposal in June to provide up to 15 hours of paid sick leave to certain part-time employees, New York City passed a new “Sick Time” law that will require employers in New York City, on or after April 1, 2014, to give part-time employees up to 40 hours of paid sick leave a year. To ensure compliance with the new law, KIC modified its sick leave proposal to allow eligible part-time employees in New York City to earn up to 40 hours of paid sick leave a year when the law becomes effective; rather than reduce sick leave for its full-time employees, who now earn more than the new law requires, KIC has proposed to allow current full-time teachers to continue to earn up to six days of sick leave each year.
While we made some progress last week, several important topics still need to be addressed at the table, including important proposals on Management and Academic Rights, Grievance and Arbitration, and Access. Over the course of several sessions, KIC has asked the Guild to make counter-proposals in these important areas, and we hope that they will be forthcoming at our next meeting scheduled for September 20. As we told the Guild last week, we need to see movement on the important operational issues that impact KIC’s business and that inform the economics of a collective bargaining agreement with the Guild.
KIC’s Bargaining Committee
