Part-Time Faculty Healthcare Bargaining Toolkit
The tools you need to win healthcare!
About our Part-Time Faculty Healthcare Campaign
During Phase 1, member action secured $200 million in ongoing annual state budget funds to finance healthcare for part-time faculty. CFT also conducted a comprehensive survey of part-time faculty in California, which called out the daily struggles that part-time faculty experience when it comes to healthcare.
Now in Phase 2, through “coordinated collective bargaining,” local unions are working to negotiate these funds for part-time faculty healthcare into contracts up and down the state. As part of this effort, local unions are organizing member actions to support negotiations and building CATs — Contract Action Teams.
On October 31, the California Community College Chancellor’s Office released its initial guidance memo, signaling to districts that it’s time to start negotiating healthcare benefits for part-time faculty.
BARGAINING TOOLS
Find the essential union tools to help your local to win healthcare at the bargaining table. Union leaders may request access to more resources (such as contract proposals) by emailing Campaign Coordinator Chase Golding.
FAQ | Bargaining Part-Time Healthcare in the Community Colleges
About the state budget monies and what you need to know to win the money for part-time faculty healthcare at your bargaining table
Sample Request to Bargain Letter
Template letter to district administrators requesting that bargaining for part-time faculty healthcare commence
Checklist | Preparing for Negotiations
Contract Action Team Sign-Up Form
Template form to solicit volunteers and organize your Contract Action Team — CAT — in support of bargaining efforts
Petition in Support of Healthcare for Part-Time Faculty
Template Google form to distribute and build overall support for healthcare in the campus community
Tips for Speaking to Your Board of Trustees
Helpful structure to follow including how to tell personal stories and present key facts
COMMUNICATIONS
Find a selection of materials to support bargaining in your local union, from social media images to posters for live-time events and Zoom backgrounds for online meetings.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Click on image to download
MESSAGE SIGNS
Faculty Wellness = Student Success – 8.5x11 in
Faculty Wellness = Student Success – 11x17 in
BLANK SIGNS
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Blank – 17x11 in
ZOOM BACKGROUNDS
Click on images to download
REPORTS
CFT Part-Time Faculty Survey Report
Groundbreaking findings shine a light on the daily struggles that part-time faculty experience when it comes to healthcare. More than 2,500 part-time faculty responded between February and April 2022. The majority of respondents were community college faculty, representing 58 of the state’s 72 districts.
Toplines Summary | Full Report
AFT Report: A State Legislative Agenda for Higher Ed Contingent Staff
Change is happening across the country! Find examples of state legislative victories throughout the nation in this June 2022 summary from AFT. California plays large!
An Army of Temps 2022: AFT Adjunct Faculty Quality of Work/Life Report
In 2020, during the pandemic, AFT followed up its initial 2019 report with a 61-question survey completed between May 21 and August 18, 2020. The updated “Army of Temps: AFT Adjunct Faculty Quality of Work/Life Report” detailed feedback from 1,883 respondents at two-year and four-year institutions — both public and private.
An Army of Temps 2020: AFT Adjunct Faculty Quality of Work/Life Report
In 2019, AFT conducted a nationwide survey of contingent faculty. The AFT’s 52-question survey was completed by 3,076 contingent faculty—part-time faculty, full-time non-tenure track faculty, and graduate employees. AFT was able to draw some robust conclusions about the conditions faced by this new majority of college faculty in the United States.
ACCOMPANYING FLYER SERIES
Based on the 2019 survey results, AFT developed these five issue-based flyers.
Healthcare
Basic Needs and Food Security
Low Pay and Public Assistance
Lack of Job Security
Retirement
MORE REPORTS
Reports from other organizations about the over-reliance on contingent faculty, including one from the U.S. House of Representatives.
- The Shifting Academic Workforce: Where Are the Contingent Faculty?
The American Institutes of Research | November 2016
Comprehensive report profiles the contingent workforce. - Just-In-Time Professor
U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce | January 2014
National study of adjunct/contingent working conditions led by the U.S. House of Representatives.
WHERE WE STAND
KEY CFT RESOLUTIONS
Find resolutions passed by delegates to CFT governance bodies, along with our stories about the policy changes and how they affect contingent faculty.
KEY AFT RESOLUTIONS
Find resolutions passed by AFT below.
NEWSROOM
CFT NEWSROOM
Our recent key stories are linked below.
- Local bargaining for part-time faculty healthcare ramps up
Phase 2 of Part-Time Faculty Campaign kicks off with regional meetings, negotiations training, Campus Equity Week
- Part-time faculty power up for change
Conference spotlights CFT equity campaign for contingent faculty
- What does losing healthcare look like for part-time faculty in our community colleges?
Pandemic, declining enrollment has led to loss of health benefits
Part 1 | Part 2
- Member action leads governor to pledge $200 million toward part-time faculty healthcare
CFT campaign brings early success in state budget
- UC lecturers’ victory inspires broad movement for equity across higher education
CFT wages a campaign for part-time faculty in the community colleges
- UC lecturers greet new contract as “a game changer” and “only the beginning”
UC-AFT negotiates groundbreaking agreement
We have published dozens more articles under these tags and in the CFT’s Part-Timer newsletter.
- PT Campaign (Part-Time Faculty Campaign)
- part-time faculty (community colleges)
- Part-Timer newsletter
GENERAL MEDIA
The general media has also taken deep dives into the two-tier system in higher ed.
- This proposal could solve health insurance problem for part-time community college faculty
CalMatters | May 2, 2022
An analysis of CFT survey data calling out dire healthcare circumstances among part-time faculty in the community colleges
- Adjuncts often find ladder leads to nowhere in California community colleges
EdSource | Feb 17, 2022
As many adjuncts have bitterly learned over the years, few bootstrapping dreams come true.
- Health care benefits key battleground for California’s adjunct community college faculty
EdSource | Feb 14, 2022
Adjuncts at 39 districts get some health benefits while 33 districts provide none
- The gig workers of California community colleges face worsening condition
EdSource | Feb 10, 2022
Is this the year for changes for adjunct faculty? Many CFT members participated in the EdSource survey.
- UC workforce churn: Why a quarter of lecturers don’t return each year
CalMatters | October 5, 2021
About a quarter of the more than 6,000 lecturers at the University of California don’t return annually.
- The Pernicious Silencing of the Adjunct Faculty
The Chronicle of Higher Education | October 30, 2017
How the current state of adjunctification is a threat to academic freedom.
- Life in academic poverty as an underpaid university teacher: They just don’t want to pay
Salon | Sept 24, 2016
Experience “heartbreaking stories from the academic underclass,” including some of our own CFT members who teach at community colleges and universities.
- Fighting Labor Contingency: Getting Teacher Unions to Work with the Larger Labor Community
The Adjunct Crisis | June 29, 2016
Teachers’ unions and traditional labor unions need to get on the same page in addressing the issue, and adjuncts are the true link between the two.