ACCJC has taken part-time jobs from San Francisco

With City College of San Francisco still in limbo status due to unfair sanctions from the Accrediting Commission for Junior and Community Colleges, nearly 150 part-time faculty have lost their jobs in the past couple of years and few, if any, part-time counselors have been rehired.

The number of part-timers receiving medical and dental benefits has declined as classes were canceled due to falling student enrollment. All faculty have taken a pay cut, representing a 20 percent reduction in real wages.

The fight for fair accreditation continues in a lawsuit filed by the City of San Francisco against the ACCJC, and in a strong campaign by local, state, and national unions.

Local contract gains

  • Part-timers at Victor Valley College made tremendous gains in their last negotiations cycle, moving from a flat rate for adjunct instructors to a four-column salary schedule that mirrors the full-time faculty schedule. Members of the AFT Part-Time Faculty Federation, Local 6286, will see pay raises ranging from 1.6 percent for those fulfilling minimum requirements to almost 12 percent (plus a $100 per unit stipend) for those with PhDs.
  • Allan Hancock College part-timers are building a more powerful union! The Part-Time Faculty Association of Allan Hancock College, Local 6185, signed up 112 new members since January 1, and received multiple organizing and communications awards at the AFT Convention in July.
  • Part-timers in the Cabrillo College Federation of Teachers, Local 4400, are working hard to reverse the Board of Governors-imposed limits to course repeatability that have restricted access to higher education for many students. Dance instructor Sharon Took-Zozaya wants her students to benefit as they used to from ongoing access to dance and fitness classes, while theater arts instructor Susan Stewart says, “It is for student success that we are so moved to make these changes.”
  • Read our in-depth article about course repeatability in California Teacher.

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Call for entries: The upcoming anthology “Teaching Poor: Voices of the Academic Precariat” will honor difficulties and triumphs of today’s contingent, part-time, and precariously employed higher education teachers. All genres of writing are welcome. Email Lee Kottner.

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