Case Study: How Peralta won the first pay parity in CA community colleges
San Mateo Federation campaign makes big strides toward parity
Equal pay for equal work. It’s a simple idea, but one that has remained all but elusive for part-time faculty, so much so that some have decried the quest for it as a Sisyphean effort. However, the recent gains made by the Peralta Federation of Teachers shows that parity is possible.
Now, Peralta pays its adjuncts at the same hourly rate for teaching and office hours as its full-time faculty — a first in the California Community College system.
Adjuncts and their unions fight on in the face of COVID
Enrollment decline, lost classes, adjunct relief fund
While the number of COVID cases are shrinking, and the vaccination rate increasing, the effects of the pandemic continue, with adjuncts having been hit particularly hard, as despite the heroic efforts of faculty to provide remote and online instruction, California community college enrollment has dropped systemwide by 11 to 12% since last fall, according to Edsource.
CFT seeks 85% adjunct teaching load, statewide path to pay parity
Union-sponsored legislation tackles long-standing adjunct issues
After last year’s heavily pandemic-impacted legislative session reduced the number of bills signed to its lowest number since 1967, the CFT is again taking up the adjunct cause on bills directed towards raising the part-time percentage cap on teaching in a single district, and in developing a path towards part-time/full-time pay parity.
Healthcare, transferable training top adjunct priorities at CFT Convention
Delegates resolve to address timely adjunct issues
At this year’s virtual CFT Convention held March 26-27, the Part-Time Faculty Committee sponsored two resolutions reflective of both the longstanding and new problems beginning to emerge in the wake of the pandemic which has impacted adjunct health and training.
Adjuncts at the table to win a New Deal for Higher Education
National campaign calls for sea change in higher ed
While the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified longstanding societal inequities in America, public higher education was already in a state of crisis, from the staggering costs of college, to the lack of access and support for lower income students, Black, indigenous, and people of color, the deteriorating, or clear lack of infrastructure, the reciprocal increase in highly paid administrative positions, and last but not least, decrease in full-time tenure track positions.
Peralta reaches 100 percent pay parity; locals win distance education support
From course conversion stipends to health benefits extensions
In spite of the pandemic, a number of local unions won big gains for adjuncts, from parity pay to distance education, to the preservation of healthcare for adjuncts with reduced loads. These wins are especially significant at this time in which revenues are falling and concerns over future budgets made many administrators skittish to bargain.
Contingent faculty team up, pass national shared governance policy
AFT Convention adopts resolution crafted by UC and community college faculty
While the COVID-19 pandemic meant that this summer’s AFT Convention had to go virtual, and in turn, resulted in format changes which made schedules tighter, and the work of those attending harder in many respects, one of the great achievements for CFT was the passage of a resolution calling for the right of contingent faculty to participate in shared governance.
The patient is on the table — Higher Education in America is sick
Opinion
By Geoff Johnson, AFT Guild, San Diego and Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community Colleges
Higher education in America is sick. Its classrooms and campuses have been largely shuttered, save but for students taking lab courses, or practicums, ironically in hospitals. Students and instructors are now confined to the domains of their computers and laptop screens in the educational netherworlds of Zoom or Cranium. With the exception of online instruction developed prior to the crisis, what is being delivered, more so than taught, is a curriculum of coping under the duress of the coronavirus pandemic.
College students staying positive through the pandemic
Union presidents surveys students for newspaper column
By Mark James Miller, Part-Time Faculty Association of Allan Hancock College
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought its own unique challenges to every facet of society. Everyone has been seriously impacted by the virus, and students in higher education are no exception.
Nationwide, students are delaying their education until the pandemic is over and colleges return to the traditional classroom approach instead of the online model being used in its place. Some are simply uncomfortable with online learning, and others are fearful that the education they receive remotely is not of the same quality as what they get in the classroom with the instructor present.
Allan Hancock College teachers and the ‘new normal’
Union presidents surveys part-time faculty for newspaper column
By Mark James Miller, Part-Time Faculty Association of Allan Hancock College
“I miss the face-to-face contact.”
“Something is missing.”
“I miss being with my students.”
As Hancock College’s part-time instructors adapt to the “new normal” brought on by the coronavirus, one theme is constant: With all classes now being taught remotely, they miss being in the classroom with their students.
Adjunct faculty leaders organize, meet challenges of pandemic
The union picture — now and in the months ahead
The ongoing COVID-19 experience for part-time instructors has demonstrated their great collective strength and resiliency, despite limited pay, benefits, job security, and often minimal support.
Several local union leaders — who are part-time faculty — report that beyond the initially hectic and at times frenzied process of transitioning to remote instruction and services, faculty have more or less still been able to teach a semblance of their face-to-face course.
Part-time faculty facing the travails of remote teaching
Stories of teaching from home during the pandemic
Within the span of just two weeks in early March, California Community Colleges, along with the rest of American higher education, were forced into the perhaps the largest and most radical pedagogical shift in its history.
Relief for part-timers and their families during pandemic
Unemployment Insurance, housing, utilities, student loans
In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, part-time faculty — beyond dealing with protecting the health and safety of themselves and their families — are facing threats to their economic security, including loss of income, access to health insurance, and their capacity to pay for housing and utilities.
It is essential part-timer faculty are aware of recent actions taken by the federal government and state of California to provide relief for people facing these challenges.
“An Army of Temps” — AFT’s call to action
New AFT report attaches numbers to the human crisis in higher education
Part of the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic is that for those who were already at risk, it has laid their situation bare. This is a part-timer reality.
“While it may seem like an odd time to be putting out the “Army of Temps: AFT Contingent Faculty Quality of Worklife Survey,” frankly, it’s about as good a time as ever to show the fragility of this workforce.”
Finding “common ground” in higher education
Campus Equity Week conference brings together contingent faculty from all higher ed systems
Members, officers, and activists from higher education unions throughout California came together for a full day during Campus Equity Week to chart a strategy for defending public higher education. They denounced especially the way education institutions, under corporate pressure, increasingly rely on contingent instructors while treating them as outsiders.
Part-timer takes the helm at State Center Federation of Teachers
One of the great powers of a union is its ability to uplift the living conditions and status of its members, not just at the bargaining table, but within the structure of the union itself — when the seemingly most marginalized members assume leadership roles.
In local unions representing all faculty, there has been a recent trend of the membership electing a part-time faculty member to lead the union, with significant support from the full-timers. There is perhaps no better example of this, though he might be reluctant himself to say so, than Keith Ford.
Governor signs loan forgiveness bill, vetoes paid maternity leave
From the Capitol – On the cusp of good things for part-timers
Budgetarily, it’s been a tough year for winning greater gains for part-timers in Sacramento, but with regard to legislation which CFT succeeded in getting to the governor’s desk, and for legislation already in the wings for next year, part-timers are on the edge of good things.
State Senator Adam Schiff goes to the head of the class
CFT Archive 1999
Most teachers speak with authority about the subjects they teach but Glendale Community College’s newest political science instructor speaks with the voice of personal experience as well. Adam Schiff knows the workings of California state government from the inside, as well he should — he’s Glendale’s state senator.
What I learned in my research of the “Involuntary Adjunct”
By Bobbi-Lee Smart, Cerritos Faculty Federation
My dissertation research focused on the perceptions of the impact of adjuncts on community college campuses in Southern California. I specifically wanted to understand the reality of involuntary adjuncts — those whose who want full-time tenure track jobs, couldn’t get a position, so worked as “full-time” adjuncts (those whose adjunct work is the majority or entirety of their income).
Freeway Flyers: Local action & quick news
Salary comparison, part-timer conference, celebrity part-timers
Los Angeles adjunct becomes chair of California Democratic Party
Rusty Hicks, known to the larger California public as the newly elected leader of the California Democratic Party, is known to the students of the Los Angeles Community College District and the Los Angeles College Faculty Guild, Local 1521, by another title since 2016 — Adjunct Instructor of Labor Studies.
Campus Equity Week 2019
Fund the Future by fighting for equity
It is not a level playing field in the world of higher education. The longstanding and systematic underfunding of higher ed has to a crisis in which 68 percent of California community college faculty now work as part-time, or temporary instructors.
California contingents unite to find “Common Ground”
In an event which channels the spirit of Campus Equity Week, leaders from the Peralta Federation of Teachers, San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, UC-AFT, and San Francisco State will host a free conference on the future of higher education at Berkeley City College on October 25.
AB 897: Raising the cap and reducing freeway flying
FIRST PERSON | By Geoff Johnson
The term “freeway flyer” has for years been synonymous with California part-time community college teachers. Since 1968, California part-timers have been legally restricted to teaching a faction of a full-time load in a given community college district, and then generally paid only for their instructional hours.
The rationale for this rule was that it allowed administrators more flexibility to deal with the drop in student sections from the fall to spring semesters, and at the same time, a way to get out of paying healthcare and retirement benefits.
Delegates reaffirm support for part-time faculty voice in shared governance
While the issues of pay inequity, the lack of job security, and access to health benefits are major challenges that plague part-time faculty —collegiality, inclusion, and connection with their campuses and fellow faculty are also important for a part-time faculty member’s long-term involvement with a particular institution.
Key to increasing adjunct involvement and connection in the California community colleges is increasing both the opportunities for and compensation of part-time faculty participation in shared governance.
Paid maternity leave: AB 500 empowers female educators, staff and their families
Pregnancy is a medical condition that requires women to take time off either to deal with the pregnancy itself and potential complications, to recover from child birthing, or bond with a child, which often requires far more than a just the few weeks that many female adjuncts may have in accumulated sick leave. It is not an illness, like a cold, nor a disability like throwing out your back. It is a temporary disability specific to women and needs to be treated as such.
Freeway Flyers: Local action & quick news
Contract gains and remembering Sam Russo
North Orange County adjunct faculty score rehire gains
After a long and protracted negotiations process which started in January of 2017 and went to fact-finding this January, Adjunct Faculty United, representing part-time faculty in the North Orange County Community College District, were able to secure an agreement from the district after separating contract negotiations, from negotiations over rehire rights driven by the passage of CFT-sponsored SB 1379.
Student loan forgiveness: Bill aims to help part-time faculty in California
AFT wants to hear from those denied application
Update: The governor signed AB 463 into law on October 4, 2019.
Presently working its way through the Assembly, AB 463, Cervantes, D-Riverside, seeks to make it easier for California part-time community college instructors to gain eligibility for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Letters to the Editor
The real effort should be pay equity at the state level
I have taught part-time music at Cabrillo College for 31 years at the maximum number of units. I am a bit dismayed about the 80 percent cap (Convention votes to raise part-time workload cap to 80 percent, Spring 2018) because that means that the colleges can now cover more classes with underpaid part-timers.
This means fewer full-time jobs, which will make everything (committee work, student contact hours outside of the classroom, etc.) more difficult for the teaching staffs. I understand that the extra work is a godsend for many part-timers but the real effort should be pay equity at the state level, not the local level.
Freeway Flyers: Local action & quick news
Yuba adjunct wins President’s Award, Fresno adjunct wins Hayward Award
This spring, Neelam Canto-Lugo, an adjunct professor of communications at Yuba College in Marysville, and member of the Yuba College Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 4952, was awarded the gold-level President’s Volunteer Service Award for her work in poorer communities of Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Nepal, among other countries.
AFT resolution supports $7,000 per three-credit course for adjuncts
One of the more talked about resolutions passed by the biennial AFT Convention this July was Resolution 15, which calls for AFT to support City University of New York adjuncts in their quest to achieve through “actions, demonstrations, and advocacy,” a minimum of $7,000 per three-credit class.
The resolution, which passed with resounding support and no opposition, also supports this minimum in “all other AFT locals’ campaigns for fair adjunct pay.”
State Council resolution reiterates support for statewide health insurance for part-timers
On May 5, the State Council approved a resolution put forth by the CFT Part-Time Committee, calling for CFT to sponsor legislation “to establish a permanent healthcare program for part-time faculty and their dependents.”
Cerritos Faculty Federation takes a stand for healthcare
Cerritos faculty are taking a stand for equity.
“Right now our college doesn’t provide any sort of health benefit to part-timers,” explained local President Stephanie Rosenblatt. “Most of the districts around us provide at least some sort of reimbursement scheme, in which part-time faculty are reimbursed at even a minimal level for their healthcare premiums.”
CFT’s efforts yield parental leave, more full-time positions, paid office hours, pay equity
If there were perhaps one way to describe the legislative campaign waged by CFT this year as it regards both part-timers and the community college system, one could say it was “spirited.” Despite the sea changes proposed for the entire system, the union still won improvements for part-timers.
Part-timers are still sticking with their union
On June 27, the storm clouds were gathering. The Janus v. ASFCME decision had just come down from the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling, overturning 40 years of legal precedent and marking the abrupt end of union fair share, or agency fee, for public employees.
Now non-union members who benefit from the hard work of unions who still represent them at the bargaining table would no longer be required to pay their fair share.
Plan your local campaign now for Campus Equity Week
The month of October is once again time to give special attention to part-time faculty issues. Officially, Campus Equity Week is the week of October 22-26, but what’s more important is that campus communities get the word out this fall before the legislative process begins.
Oppose creation of unnecessary, fully online college
All of California’s 114 community colleges offer online courses, so why do we need a fully online 115th college, especially a non-union one which would hire adjuncts to work for even lower wages, without union protections?
The $120 million the governor is budgeting for this college could be better spent on increasing full-time positions, part-time pay equity, and more paid part-time office hours.
Support paid office hours for part-time faculty
Send a letter to Gov. Brown asking that more money be put in the State Part-time Office Hours Fund. These letters work. A similar campaign last year helped secure a $5 million increase in the fund, an increase of over 70 percent. That said, the state fund only matches about 10 percent of paid part-time office hours funds, which is why office hours funding is either limited or non-existent in most districts.
Los Rios wins top award for its Part-Timer’s Almanac
There are adjunct survival guides out there which give basic union info, and perhaps maybe where the copy machines are located on campus, then there’s The Part-Timer’s Almanac, A Compendium of Valuable Information, which is perhaps the most comprehensive, adjunct-oriented union publication published by a local union.
Yes, Virginia, adjuncts can get unemployment benefits
Even if you have received a tentative offer of employment for the next semester, you are entitled to apply for unemployment benefits over the break immediately upon completion of your last working day of the semester.
Adjunct instructors are considered at-will employees, because despite the “tentative assignment offer” one may receive, this is not legally considered a “reasonable assurance of employment.”
Membership drives in the community colleges mean more adjunct power
The forthcoming Supreme Court ruling in Janus vs. AFSCME poses a serious threat to union strength. Any union is only as strong as its membership base, and when unions have higher percentages of the workers in its unit as active members, they are stronger at the bargaining table, and better able to protect its workers from violations of their rights.
Part-timer health benefits: The successes and challenges ahead
Among the many challenges that part-time, or contingent faculty face, health care benefits, or rather, the lack thereof, has been one of the most significant.
According to Bloomberg, healthcare is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States, and in spite of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, in March 2010, the number of bankruptcies attributed to healthcare costs tripled in 2017, while the general rate of bankruptcies fell overall.
Convention votes to raise part-time workload cap to 80 percent
At this year’s CFT Convention, delegates passed Resolution 15 calling for the CFT to support changing the workload cap in a community college district to 80 percent of a full-time equivalent load, effectively allowing part-time faculty to teach up to 12 units.
New law brings reemployment rights for part-time faculty
Successful CFT-sponsored legislation calls for districts to negotiate
Community college districts will soon be compelled to negotiate what CFT-sponsored legislation calls “reemployment preference for part-time, temporary faculty.” The landmark provisions require districts to negotiate with the union in order to receive significant funding available from the state Student Success and Support Program.
Freeway Flyers: Local action & quick news
New study explores sociology adjunct working conditions
As the only part-time faculty member of an American Sociological Association taskforce assembled to investigate the teaching of sociology within community colleges, Peralta Federation of Teachers member and Laney College instructor Cynthia Mahabir co-authored a scholarly study of data collected from part-time sociology instructors in the nation’s community colleges.
Falling enrollment, cancelled classes, and part-time faculty
FIRST PERSON | Renee Fraser
Many of us have been teaching in community college for 20 years or more, and we remember the days when the mission was education, not production. Classes might have 25 or 30 students, so we could have seminar-style discussions and individual project presentations, and even memorize the names of our students. We might assign lengthy papers and essays, and we had time to read each one, make comments, and allow students to rewrite them.
Campus Equity Week can build adjunct-student solidarity
October 24-28 is Campus Equity Week
Most part-time instructors are aware of how damaging adjunct working conditions can be to our lives economically, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. You may also be aware of how these working conditions can hurt students, the institutions, and tenure-track, full-time employees as well.
But how aware are students?
Historic victory: New law brings reemployment rights for part-time faculty
Governor signs CFT-sponsored bills calling for districts to negotiate with unions
Community college districts will be compelled to negotiate what CFT-sponsored legislation calls “reemployment preference for part-time, temporary faculty.” The landmark provisions require districts to negotiate with the union in order to receive significant funding available from the state Student Success and Support Program.
Freeway Flyers: Local action & quick news
Campus Equity Week draws attention to inequities among faculty in higher education and calls for economic justice, job security, and institutional support for contingent and part-time faculty. Originally organized by the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, these October events aim to bring greater awareness to the precarious situation for contingent faculty in higher education, organize for action, and build solidarity.
Will you be eligible for unemployment this summer?
By Grace Chee
At the end of each semester or academic term, full-time faculty go on break, while adjunct faculty become unemployed or underemployed — still working and making less than $600 per week — until the next semester or term starts.
During these periods, you may be eligible to receive unemployment insurance benefits of up to $450 a week, for up to 26 weeks per year in California.
One conversation at a time: Part-time faculty join the union in record numbers
By Linda Sneed
As a CFT vice president and representative of part-time faculty in my district, I’m pleased by the efforts made by my local union and the CFT to strengthen member engagement and outreach. The CFT “Building Our Power” campaign is helping locals do a better job of not only sharing information with bargaining unit members but seeking their input.
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