CCPOA Has Reached a Tentative Agreement. As you have likely heard, Unit 6, represented by CCPOA and consisting mainly of correctional officers, has reached a tentative agreement with the State for a successor MOU. The specifics of the tentative agreement may be found at https://eservices.calhr.ca.gov/enterprisehrblazorpublic/public/mou/bargainingcontracts/6.
Here are some of the highlights of the Unit 6 tentative agreement:
- The term of the agreement is July 3, 2025, through July 2, 2028.
- There will be no furloughs for the term of the contract.
- They will receive a 3% General Salary Increase (GSI) on July 1, 2025. However, starting with the July 2025 pay period and continuing through June 2027, they will also receive a 3% pay reduction. Because of this pay reduction, most of the unit will receive 5 hours per month for the PLP 2025 Program.
- There will be a GSI of 3% effective July 1, 2027.
- Unit 6 will continue to pay 4% of pensionable compensation for prefunding other post-retirement benefits (OPEB); however, the employer will not be making its monthly OPEB contributions for 2025-26 and 2026-27.
- Several other provisions, some unique to Unit 6, such as random substance testing and exploring the potential of moving to 12-hour shifts, are also included as well as favorable differential and retention and recruitment pay that CASE has proposed in Bargaining contracts repeatedly over the years, that thus far has not been accepted by the State.
The CASE Bargaining Team continues to meet with CalHR to negotiate a successor MOU. As our membership is projected to be 25-40% underpaid compared to their other public sector counterparts, terms such as what Unit 6 agreed to are simply not satisfactory to Unit 2. Moreover, unlike CCPOA, CASE brings in significant revenue to the State from Special Fund sources, and with CASE’s recent aggressive shutting down of illegal outside law firms (our latest victory occurred just this week), the State is more dependent on CASE members’ legal acumen if it wants to avoid multi-million dollar liability and continue with multi-million dollar wins in Court.
Discussions during negotiations are confidential and therefore CASE cannot provide such information in detail (aside from playing our hand in advance would be poor tactics). Nevertheless, the Board is continuing to expend numerous hours every day, including on weekends fighting hard to secure a fair contract even during this time of financial uncertainty.
It is well known that even Units that were not scheduled to be in bargaining are being dragged back in to fight for money increases that were already agreed to in a predecessor MOU. Multiple PERB actions filed against the State, including by CASE, are pending without a disposition yet. CASE has not ruled out further legal action against the State and supports the individual efforts of those members who have stepped up and exercised their legal rights to demand bargaining. For those members who have not, we are stronger in numbers and as mentioned in last week’s CASE Files, there is still time to send this letter out. CASE has heard from our voting membership loud and clear that as important as telework is, we should not allow the State to leverage RTO against a fair raise, despite any budgetary shortfall claims. If favorable RTO terms are offered, they must not be so fleeting and temporary in nature as to be meaningless a short time later. The input of our voting membership is valuable, and we thank those who have provided constructive feedback to help guide the Bargaining Team’s strategy.