OAKLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE

1
OAKLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE

• 340 employees caring about their positions with
  OCC
• Tutors
• Student Instructors
• Part Time Employees

2
Who is Adecco?

• Adeccos promise of a better format as an
  employer
• Medical/Dental Coverage
• Paid Holidays
• Vacation Pay

3
What Happened When, and Why?

• History (Timeline) (1 of 2)
• Notification letter sent to Classified Staff
• Transitional Meetings
• Termination Letter if not signed up
• First Board of Trustees Meeting
• Lets Organize!

4
What Happened When, and Why?

• History (Timeline) cont.
• Creating a domain and website
• Weekly Campus Meetings
• Mobilizing our group to communicate publicly
• Join Adecco or consider yourself fired
• Second Board of Trustees Meeting

5
At the First Board Meeting

• Tutors Speak Out to the Board!
• HR dept
• We first learned that one person of her own
  volition decided to let go all 340 employees
  without seeking approval from the Board of
  Trustees and be reclassified as temporary staff
  workers with Adecco.
• Board was unaware of Adecco transition.
• Cost-Benefit Analysis Report requested by BOT

6
Knowing your Opponent

• Researching the situation
• Who is Adecco?
• Researching your HR dept head
• It was first learned that one person of her own
  volition decided to let go all 340 employees
  without seeking approval from the Board of
  Trustees to be reclassified as temporary staff
  workers with Adecco (a Switzerland based staffing
  agency).

7
When was the Honeymoon over?

• First Transitional Meeting
• Documents had to be signed at meeting
• No one allowed to take docs out of the meeting
• Adecco handbook revealed disturbing policies
• Join Adecco or Lose your OCC job

8
What could we do?

• Organize!
• Many concerned employees with no focus
• Getting everyone to participate with what was
  going on
• Employees started quitting voluntarily
• Encourage a letter writing campaign
• Chuck writes to Oakland Press to get Interview
• Jeff does Interview

9
Two Employees taking the initiative

• Jeff Albrecht
• Organizing facts delegating others to obtain
  documents via FOIA rules
• Communicating with Board and encouraging others
  to stand up
• Chuck Storey
• Building website to display information to the
  group
• Sending out emails to employees and motivating
  them to write, email and demonstrate publicly.

10
Other Persons taking initiative

• PASS Specialists
• Wrote letters to the OCC Administration urging
  them to reconsider their decision
• Classified Staff
• Wrote letters to the Board of Trustees urging
  them to reconsider this decision
• Classified members picketed Trustees Meeting
• Taxpayers
• Wrote letters to the newspapers and also to the
  Board asking for an explanation
• Faculty Members
• Testified to Board on behalf of Tutors

11
What Happened at the 2nd BOT meeting

• 100 Employees showed up to meeting
• Board quibbled on procedural matters on the issue
• Those who wanted were not allowed to speak
• Those who came were asked to view the Meeting in
  a small lunch room with a TV that had no sound
• Board argued the matter among themselves
• There was a consensus that a majority vote could
  be made on a motion by a BOT member
• Board agreed best interest of the College to
  reverse decision

12
Whats Left?

• Employees who were hired when Adecco was briefly
  thought to be our new employer, still work for
  Adecco
• Trying to Liberate Employees back to OCC

13
In Conclusion
One Person attempted on her own to change our
employment status with Oakland Community College.
The Employees stood up and challenged this by
addressing the Board and physically made the
public aware of the situation via letters to the
editor etc.
The Board ruled on the situation to reverse the
transition and made it so nothing of this nature
could be done without a vote of the Board of
Trustees. Cost Benefit analysis displayed OCC
would stand to loose money.
14
Youll never know if you dont try - or dont
even bother to ask anyone