A “red letter year” for CFT legislation in support of contingent faculty
Healthcare insurance, teaching load, rehire rights, and parity
COVID and the subsequent student enrollment drop during the last two semesters have placed great burdens on contingent faculty, from scrambling to teach remotely to negotiating personal and family challenges to facing reduced assignments and a loss of healthcare benefits.
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.
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.
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.
AFT unions lead the way in getting equal pay for equal work
Getting to parity
Could the dream of “equal pay for equal work” become a reality for contingent faculty in California? It could if CFT is successful in promoting the passage of progressive legislation, as part of the national AFT campaign to address the academic staffing crisis in higher education.
One of the principles of the the newly introduced Faculty and College Excellence Act (AB 1343, Mendoza, D-Artesia) is pro rata pay — and benefits equal to that of tenured and tenure-track faculty doing comparable work.