COLLEGES FIRM PACTS WITH UNIONS.

Byline: Erik Nelson Staff Writer

The Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees on Wednesday ratified collective bargaining agreements with three unions representing about 1,600 employees.

It also signed a supplemental agreement with the 4,000-member faculty union detailing members' rights to intellectual property. All four unions previously approved the contracts.

Wednesday's ratification caps nearly a year of negotiations with the district's second-largest union, the American Federation of Teachers College Staff Guild, which represents about 1,000 technicians, secretaries, and other technical and support employees.

Under the three-year contract, the guild will receive a 5.67 percent raise this year on top of a 3 percent raise retroactive to July 1999, the first year of the agreement.

The trustees also signed agreements with the Los Angeles City and County School Employees Union Local 99, representing about 450 gardeners, cafeteria workers and other blue-collar employees, and the Los Angeles-Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council Crafts Unit, which represents about 120 construction, maintenance and repair workers. The three-year contracts provide a 3.5 percent raise for members of both Local 99 and the Crafts Unit.

``It's been a long time, and what this will enable us to do is move forward in collaboration with the staff guild and building and trades, and Local 99,'' said college district Vice Chancellor Peter Landsberger. ``I think it will make things smoother and more efficient.''

Much of the delay in negotiations came from working out health benefits, Landsberger said. In the end, the college district won a cap on the amount of premiums it pays and the unions won salary hikes and new pay differentials for taking computer courses or achieving degrees above those required for their jobs.

Landsberger said the pay hikes were also making up for past belt-tightening.

``They're more generous, because in the past several years we were not in a position to grant the effective cost-of-living,'' he said. ``We weren't able to keep up.''

The college is also preparing to sell voters on a $1.2 billion bond issue to pay for 28 new buildings on the San Fernando Valley's three campuses along with improvements at the district's other six colleges.