Topic: Organizing
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.
Lorena Gonzalez sworn in to lead the California Labor Federation
This week at the convention of the California Labor Federation, history was made when Lorena Gonzalez was sworn in to lead the 2.1 million-member statewide umbrella organization of the AFL-CIO.
Gonzalez, formerly the secretary-treasurer of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council before serving nine years in the California Assembly, will become the first woman and person of color to lead the statewide federation.
Faculty at Pasadena ArtCenter College of Design choose AFT/CFT as their union
Talents of design teachers shine during successful union campaign
The nearly 700 part-time and full-time faculty at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena now comprise CFT’s newest local union in the Federation’s recent surge of organizing victories among private sector universities.
The ArtCenter faculty voted to form a union with AFT/CFT with 60% of those participating in the mail election voting in favor of the union. The National Labor Relations Board counted union recognition ballots June 21 in Los Angeles.
Part-time faculty power up for change
PHOTO GALLERY
Conference spotlights CFT equity campaign for contingent faculty
A crowd of more than 100 members strong — some seasoned part-timers with decades of experience, others new adjuncts for which this was their first union event — were engaged as the CFT Part-Time Faculty Conference opened to roars and cheers with its theme of “Equity for Contingent Faculty.” The feeling one had as a part-timer was best summed up by Lin Chan, co-chair of the CFT Part-Time Faculty Committee, “You’re not one person…you’re one of thousands.”
Faculty at Dominican University choose AFT/CFT as their union
With resounding 84% vote, faculty elect to have union representation
On April 11, faculty at the Dominican University of California watched excitedly as the National Labor Relations Board in San Francisco conducted a ballot count resulting in a resounding 84% yes vote for union representation with the AFT/CFT.
The new local union — the Dominican University of California Faculty Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 6604 — will represent 103 full-time faculty members at the private liberal arts college in San Rafael. The university was founded in 1890 and offers more than 60 majors, minors, and concentrations.
Claremont librarians, library staff choose CFT as their union
Union representational vote garners 80% support
The librarians and library staff at The Claremont Colleges Services overwhelmingly chose CFT in a union representational election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. The votes were counted in Los Angeles on March 22 with 80% of those participating voting in favor of the union.
Classified members feel the love during Back-to-School Tour
CFT leaders provide encouragement, support for safe working conditions
CFT’s top officers embarked on a statewide Back-to-School Tour in mid-August as many classified employees and teachers headed back to campus in-person for the first time since the pandemic forced distance learning for California schools and colleges. The road trip included stops from North Bay Counties to San Diego County, in both urban and rural districts.
You can help start an AFT retiree chapter!
Retiree division sets sights on organizing more chapters
For most of her career, Kate Disney taught engineering at Mission College in the Silicon Valley city of Santa Clara. Disney learned the ins and outs of the West Valley-Mission Federation of Teachers contract when she became a union rep in 2017. She was elected president of the local in 2019.
“You learn about different sections of a contract as you go through different phases of your life and career,” she said. “Certain portions are more important at different ages.”
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.
What I did to help win in Election 2020
Five retirees recount their extraordinary efforts
CFT retirees have broad-ranging interests and community relationships — and a lot of collective power. That is reflected in these five first-person accounts from very connected and active retirees.
Facing most difficult conditions in decades, unions meet the moment
Organizing for equity at work, home, and in communities
Strong organizing has meant workplace gains and more political power for faculty during the pandemic, with members showing up in larger than ever numbers to virtual bargaining sessions and meetings.
Now – yes, now – is the time for contingent faculty to organize
If we don’t fight now, we may not get another chance
By Josh Brahinsky and Roxi Power, UC-AFT Santa Cruz
When graduate-student workers at the University of California at Santa Cruz voted overwhelmingly in December to reject their statewide union contract and follow the West Virginia teachers’ model of a wildcat strike, the precarious lives of academic workers became a news story once again.
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.
“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.
Classified employees look ahead to 2020 political challenges
Top of the list: Qualify Schools and Communities First initiative
Members from classified locals across the state recently met in Glendale to swap organizing tips, celebrate victories, and strengthen political skills.
Participants engaged enthusiastically from Friday, October 18, when Council of Classified Employees President Carl Williams welcomed leaders to his first President’s Collaboration, to that Sunday morning, when Superintendent of Instruction Tony Thurmond rallied the troops for coming electoral fights.
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 highlights unjust working conditions for contingent faculty
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.
How unionizing the Lusty Lady has influenced faculty members
Novelist and poet works to organize faculty in creative departments
When Aya de León started as a lecturer in African American Studies at UC Berkeley and director of its Poetry for the People program, she was excited to join AFT Local 1474. She’s been working since she was a teenager, de León says, but this is the first job where she has a union to represent her.
When she was younger, the idea of being in a local seemed very adult to her, and now being a member of one makes her feel she has arrived, she says. That’s just one reason she’s excited to be a union member.
UC lecturers take bold stand with university in negotiations
Momentum has built activism and organizing success
Eighty UC-AFT members and their allies showed up at the first bargaining session at UC Davis as lecturers began their contract negotiations last spring. The impressive number of rank-and-file members in the room to support the team helped them win open bargaining, says UC-AFT President Mia McIver.