Best Practices Classified Senates and Unions working together

Collaboration between Leaders and Leadership Bodies (Senate and Executive Council) • Collaboration of the two Presidents is critical. You have to work on a collaborative relationship at this level first. • Union President and Classified Senate President meet to talk about policies impacting classified staff. • Liasion Position on both bodies.

General Principles • Keep communication open. • Agree to disagree, but stay focused on working toward the benefit of the entire classified body. Avoid Turf wars. • Work with each other, rather than against. Don’t let the District divide and conquer. • Support the efforts of each body. Senate supports negotiations. Union supports senate activities – Classified appreciation. ( Ex: Union negotiated release time for Classified President. )

Shared Governance – Some examples • Coordinate to ensure that Union president and Classified President serve by position on high level shared governance committees representing classified concerns. (College Council, IPC, etc) • Make sure both Presidents have standing meetings with the College President • Board Reports- Senate Pres provides regular report. Good time to address issues impacting classified staff

Other Examples • Union and Senate share hiring committee position selections. (Written into the contract) • Union and Senate collaborated on shared governance committee assignments. At SRJC, the two bodies divided up the committees based on those impacting working conditions, wages and benefits remaining with union and the others going to Senate responsibility.

Educate all Classified on the roles of both • New employee orientations – both bodies present to new employees. • Brown Bags, PD workshops, joint communications, newsletters