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AVISAN Solutions

 

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About Avisan

AVISAN Solutions

About Avisan Solutions

Avisan (ah-vee-san)

verb (sp): to advise 

 

With over sixty-years of combined management and union experience, Luis Sanchez and Al Avila founded Avisan Solutions to provide California's higher education and K-12 institutions with support for collective bargaining, conflict resolution, workplace culture, leadership support, and other labor relations matters.

 

Avisan's partners are trained in and have experience in Traditional/Positional Bargaining, Interest-Based Bargaining/Getting to Yes methods for negotiations. The partners know the strengths and short-comings of each firsthand and incorporate only the most effective aspects of each into our own methodology, theTrust First Method. The Trust First Method focuses on the symbiotic relationship between management and unions to build trust and ensure that neither side is subjected to a "slight-of-hand" maneuver or suffers from "buyer's remorse" after the agreement is ratified. 

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The services Avisan provides assist employers and unions as they navigate the challenges of negotiations and labor relations. Avisan offers pre-bargaining training, facilitation and mediation during bargaining, and on-going support after ratification. 

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The Avisan methods are designed to build trust and respect within and between the management and union teams to improve workplace culture and employee morale.  

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Services Provided

 

Avisan Solutions provides services to assist managers and employee union leadership with collective bargaining, workplace culture and morale, conflict resolution, and leadership support.

 

The Avisan method develops a collaborative partnership that focuses on trust first and understanding the symbiotic relationship between management and the bargaining units.

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Avisan provides customized services: 

  1. Collective Bargaining training, facilitation, and mediation

  2. Workplace culture and morale strategies

  3. Conflict resolution and mediation 

  4. ​Management and union leadership support

 

Trust-First Collective Bargaining Strategies

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Collective bargaining is perhaps the single most important event that has a direct impact on the culture and morale of the organization. No college administrator is shielded from the wrath of a collective bargaining process gone awry. No union is shielded from internal conflict arising from members who feel alienated by a perceived unfair agreement. No institution is shielded from the effects on employee morale arising from tensions when negotiations are near or at an impasse. 

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A clearly expressed and well-defined collective bargaining agreement is essential to all parties affected by its terms and conditions. It is the official playbook for working conditions and, as such, impacts the overall health and well-being of the institution it serves. 

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What differentiates Avisan from other consulting firms is our "Socratic-Mediatory" approach to bargaining that focuses on trust and reduces the fear of “giving away too much” or “leaving too much on the table.” Avisan’s five-step process includes:

  1. Pre-bargaining team-building, training, and support

  2. Writing effective ground rules and proposals

  3. Facilitating bargaining sessions

  4. Providing mediation during bargaining

  5. Providing post-bargaining support

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Workplace Culture and Morale

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One thing that differentiates Avisan from other consulting firms in addressing workplace culture concerns is our Group Response Institutional Diagnostic (GRID) method. We don’t just survey. We don’t just talk. We meet with employee groups in a structured format to get to the heart of the issues and develop detailed solutions for managers that build trust and improve morale. We are hands-on and committed to provide institutional support, even after we leave your site. 

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Conflict Resolution Methodologies 

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Community colleges face unprecedented employment related challenges today, ranging from petty complaints to serious conflicts. Many community colleges turn to law firms or in-house counsel to handle personnel conflicts, complaints, grievances and the collective bargaining process, due to fear of litigation. However, most legal counsel are not practitioners nor experienced in managing personnel. Their approach to problems is pragmatic and the consequence is that employee engagement and morale are often overlooked in the interest of "litigation avoidance".

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The Avisan partners bring many years of practical and legal experience to help managers and unions avoid pitfalls when dealing with employee conflicts and grievances. The partners provide a fair and impartial mediation process. Whatever problem you are facing, we most likely have experienced something similar or have knowledge of instances where it has occurred and can facilitate the application of real-world workable solutions. 

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Leadership Support

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Avisan provides training, mentorship and advice services to help supervisors, managers, executive officers, and union officers navigate the challenges of their roles. 

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Most leadership training programs provide textbook-style information in a format that occurs in a lecture-based setting. This approach occurs outside the necessary context for the application of learning and skill development. That is why managers who are sent through a management training program often are lost when later faced with an employee incident. 

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Avisan leadership workshops provide real world interactive scenarios for the student to develop and hone skills for conflict de-escalation strategies. 

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Sevices

Service Areas

AVISAN serves California's education institutions and their recognized bargaining units.

Meet the Partners

The Avisan Solutions partners met more than a decade ago across the table from one another as adversaries. Al was the chief negotiator representing the college’s faculty which had just come off a highly contentious impasse. Luis was the newly hired vice-president and assigned as the chief negotiator representing the college administration. 

 

Luis’ background as an academic dean and faculty member at another community college and Al’s background in administration in law enforcement helped bridge gaps that had previously existed. Both were able to understand the perspectives of the other and both understood the importance of transparency and trust, which lead to respect.

 

Together they were able to formulate strategies to develop mutual respect between the members of the management negotiating team and members of the union negotiating team. Luis and Al have remained friends despite moving on in their respective careers and have now joined forces to bring their lessons learned to help public entities build trust and respect in the workplace and in the bargaining process.

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Co-Founding Partner

Luis P. Sanchez

Luis Pablo Sanchez is a licensed California attorney in private practice and a consultant in the field of higher education. Prior to returning to the practice of law in January of 2023, Mr. Sanchez served as president of two California Community Colleges from 2015 to 2023, culminating a thirty-two-year career in the California Community College system, which began in 1991 when he left his full-time commercial law practice to teach full-time, where he was twice honored by students as Outstanding Instructor of the Year.

 

During his teaching career, Mr. Sanchez maintained his law practice on a part-time basis and wrote two textbook supplements on California Business Law. He also served as the chief negotiator for faculty from approximately 1998 to 2005. Mr. Sanchez later became a vice-president of instruction and participated in the collective bargaining process as the chief negotiator representing the District from 2011 to 2015.

 

Much of Mr. Sanchez’s education and experience has entailed the application of interest-based negotiations and collaborative conflict resolution in the higher education employment arena, where he is proud to have fostered positive employee morale in the service of students throughout his career.  

Mr. Sanchez earned his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from California State University, Los Angeles, in 1976, followed by his Juris Doctorate (1983) and his Master’s degree in Business and Tax Law (1990) from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. He has taught various law and education classes at all undergraduate and graduate levels. Throughout his career, Mr. Sanchez has served on the local boards of the YMCA, the United Way, and the Boys and Girls Club. He resides in Moorpark, California and in his spare time enjoys reading (primarily history and biographies), walking, traveling, playing guitar, songwriting, and playing golf and tennis. 

 

Mr. Sanchez’s parents, Amador and Josefina Sanchez, were Mexican immigrants with a limited education but with the deep desire that their children would acquire an American education and lead lives of success and significance. They provided Mr. Sanchez and his siblings with a deep foundation of love, integrity, industry, and courage.   

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Co-Founding Partner

Al Avila

Al is a second-generation Native Californian of Mexican decent, first-generation college graduate, and a proud military veteran.

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Al has provided consultation and training for tribal governments, city governments, private corporations, educational institutions, employee unions, and police training academies. He has experience with cases presented to the Public Employment Relations Board, Labor Relations Board, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the California Civil Rights Department.

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POSITIONS HELD

  • 20 years military and civilian law enforcement (six years as chief administrator)

  • 5 years police union chief negotiator/president

  • 17 years Peace Officer Standards and Training academy director

  • 5 years university lecturer

  • 19 years tenured professor

  • 12 years college faculty union chief negotiator

  • 19 years academic department chair

  • 7 years youth sports coach and board president

 

CONSULTING EXPERIENCES

  • Cultural Diversity and Sexual Harassment Training Consultant

  • Field Medical Investigator

  • Peace Officer Standards and Training Academy Certifications

  • Community College Faculty Dispute Resolution

  • Parochial School Accreditation Climate Survey

  • Community College Classified Employees Union Consultations 

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LABOR RELATED ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  • Negotiated seventeen collective bargaining contracts/agreements

  • Negotiated twenty-three formal employment related grievances

  • Negotiated over twenty memoranda of understanding and side-letter agreements

  • Managed and resolved Public Employment Relations Board Impasse 

  • Served on College Councils and Committees

  • Developed the Group Response Institution Diagnostic method for climate assessment

 

PAST ASSOCIATIONS

  • California Academy Directors Association

  • International Association of Chiefs of Police

  • California Association of Administration of Justice Educators

  • American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees/AFL-CIO

  • California Community College Independents

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