Topic: Collective Bargaining
UESF’s big win for paras shows strength and challenges for Classified workers
UESF leaders share the vision and wins of historic new contract
People call San Francisco a city of love and a city of fog, according to Cassondra Curiel, the President of United Educators of San Francisco. But what it really is, she said, is a union town.
Curiel told attendees at the Council of Classified Employees Conference that the union of 6,500 classified and certificated members just won one of the biggest tentative agreements in the history of the organization.
Part-time Healthcare: CFT Locals in the Fight for What’s Morally Right
One year out from the historic passage of AB 190 (the state budget bill for that year), many CFT locals have been successful in securing full-time equivalent medical coverage for their part-time members, while others remain engaged in awakening the moral consciences of their admin and local boards of trustees to do the right thing.
El Camino wins big and refocuses on transparency for all
Juli Wolfgram, a part time art history teacher at El Camino College and a member of AFT Local 1388, says her working conditions have improved significantly in the past year. She thinks this is due to the union’s executive board as well as the negotiating team.
A unique salary formula ensures higher wages in Salinas Valley
Kati Bassler, President of the Salinas Valley Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1020, says the salary formula the local has had since 2011 ensures members they will get a fair share of district funds.
“Their increase in salary is based on financial standing of district,” she said on a video call. “It creates a culture where everyone understands that if the district gets more money, they’re going to get a raise.”
Relief for Hard-hit Staff at El Camino College
Not a single member of AFT Local 6142 was furloughed during the Covid pandemic, but the economic crisis hit El Camino College staff hard, and many received notices of 10% increases in rent as soon as eviction moratoriums ended.
“Five union members have told me they live in their cars, and another member was picking cans out of the campus trash cans to buy medicine for his children,” said Local 6142 President Roy Dietz. “That’s humbling, to tell someone about the state you’re in.”
Relief is on the way.
Lawndale Federation brings home medical coverage for part-timers
The District scheduled part-timers so they were always a few minutes short of the ACA requirement to provide health benefits.
Watch this powerful video of members talking about their hard fought win for medical benefits.
For 30 years, the Lawndale Elementary School District denied their part-time classified employees health benefits. The District scheduled part-timers so they were always a few minutes short of the ACA requirement to provide health benefits.
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
Securing annual funding for part-time faculty healthcare is an unprecedented legislative win. The next step is to secure that healthcare at the local bargaining table.
FAQ: Part-time faculty healthcare, collective bargaining & state budget
Answers to common questions
Updated September 27, 2022
This year we won a historic expansion of state funding for part-time community college faculty healthcare, increasing state support from $490,000 to $200 million in ongoing funding.
The funding will enable local community colleges to provide quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare to substantially more part-time faculty. Local unions should now prepare to go to the bargaining table to negotiate the healthcare implementation.
Retrospective: Organizing to win in tumultuous times
Reflecting on five years of union gains for UC librarians and lecturers
By Mia McIver, President, University Council-AFT
When I was elected president of University Council-AFT in 2017, I never could have predicted that the next five years would be as tumultuous as they turned out to be. I also could never have foreseen how our union of University of California lecturers and librarians would organize, build power, win contracts, and accomplish gains that far exceeded my hopes and expectations.
Continued enrollment woes create challenges for part-time faculty
Local unions finding solutions in pandemic-driven tough times
While California is showing strong signs of emerging from an economy ravaged by the pandemic, the community colleges are still reeling from the impact, most strongly demonstrated in the sharp decline in student enrollment. This has led to tough situations for many adjuncts, and for the local unions representing them.
Two dozen local unions honored with Solidarity Awards
Holding the line on layoffs, pushback, guardians and anniversaries
The night before CFT State Council, on Friday, May 18, the Federation recognized locals for their extraordinary union work to support members during the pandemic. The recipients of our Solidarity Awards are listed below, as well as significant anniversaries marked by AFT local unions.
UC lecturers greet new contract as “a game changer” and “only the beginning”
PHOTO GALLERIES
UC-AFT negotiates groundbreaking agreement
The view from Westwood
UCLA — It was about 3 a.m., UC-AFT President Mia McIver recalled, when negotiators for the University of California texted the administration’s “final offer.” McIver knew that all major contract issues, from job security to salary increases, were settled. She also knew that 6,500 lecturers were set to strike at all nine UC campuses in a few hours.
BREAKING: Strike averted — UC lecturers reach groundbreaking settlement at 4 am
SUMMARY: UC-AFT reached a groundbreaking settlement with UC administration in the middle of the night. The planned two-day ULP strike has been called off. There will be noon rallies to celebrate today at all nine campuses.
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What does a UC-AFT strike look like?
PHOTO GALLERY: Lecturers strike in 2002 for job security
Tenuous system torn apart by denial of three-year contracts to experienced teachers
Anger among lecturers at UC Davis finally boiled over at the end of the spring semester. On May 29 and 30, 2002, non-tenured faculty walked the picket line instead of teaching classes, and turned the campus entrance on A Street into an impromptu educational institution.
Show solidarity with UC-AFT! Join the ULP strike Wednesday and Thursday
Update: The strike is called off after an agreement was reached in the early morning hours of November 17. See the news story.
Late Saturday night, the lecturers of the University Council-AFT announced that they have notified UC management that lecturers will take part in an unfair labor practice strike on November 17 and 18. This strike is about a pattern of bad faith bargaining and unfair labor practices committed by President Michael Drake’s administration.
Part-time faculty face loss of work, health benefits in COVID times
Locals negotiate vaccine stipends, reduced class minimums, retention of health benefits
As the COVID pandemic stretches into the fall, community college adjuncts have been hit especially hard by the decline in student enrollment, limited support services, and inadequate or even non-existent access to healthcare. The loss of work, loss of insurance benefits, and even the breakdown of personally financed yet essential teaching equipment have been the tragic results.
Lecturers rally at nine UC campuses in statewide action
1700 supporters turn out to stand with lecturers
As hundreds of lecturers, students and other workers at the Berkeley campus of the University of California gathered in front of the MLK Student Center, they began to chant. “UC would not be anything, Without teaching faculty, ME!” Leading them was Lacy Barnes, senior vice president of the CFT, and former full-time faculty member and president of the State Center Federation of Teachers.
What’s on everyone’s mind? The return to in-person
From urban to rural, community college locals weigh in
Most faculty members, staff, and students at the state’s community colleges have been teaching, learning, and working online for more than a year and a half due to COVID-19. Many planned to go back to their campus in the fall semester, but after a brief period of hope that the virus was on the way out the delta variant emerged in the summer, and in many areas, COVID is surging again.
Back to the classroom, but no contract
Facing inequity, lack of COVID protections, 96% of UC-AFT members vote to authorize strike
As they have for the past two years, lecturers at the University of California continue their effort to get the administration to bargain a fair contract. The last agreement between the university and the University Council-AFT, expired on January 31, 2020. The union’s negotiating committee has met with UC’s bargaining team on 50 occasions, yet the four most fundamental issues are still outstanding — high turnover rates, lack of performance reviews, widespread uncompensated labor, and compensation itself.
Ask the governor to protect bargaining rights for UC teaching faculty
Send a letter in support of AB 1550 now!
AB 1550, authored by Assemblymember Luz Rivas, has successfully made it through the California Legislature and to Governor Newsom’s desk. The governor has until October 10 to sign it into law.