UNION LEADERSHIP

Nominations open for AFT 1493 officers; Postponed elections to take place in November

In November, AFT 1493 will be holding elections for local officers for the next two years and nominations for our elected offices are now open. (Although elections for union officers usually take place in the spring, the elections were postponed to the fall due to Covid.)

Have you ever considered running for a union position and taking an active role in the organization that represents the interests of all faculty in this district? Would you like to contribute to the process of making some positive changes for faculty in this district?

We are accepting nominations for the offices of President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, a Chairperson for each Chapter, an Executive Committee Member for each Chapter, and a Part-Time Representative for each Chapter. Note that our local has three chapters: Cañada, CSM, and Skyline. Also note that, according to our constitution, each elected position may be held by one or two faculty members (for example, there may be one Vice-President, or two Co-Vice-Presidents). If two faculty members wish to share a position, they must run together for such position and the position (not each faculty member) will have one vote on the Executive Committee.

You may make a nomination by email or by announcing it at our union’s November 4th membership meeting, to be held from 2:30 to 5 p.m. at this Zoom link. You can nominate yourself or another union member or members.

To make a nomination by email, please email our local’s Secretary, Jessica Silver-Sharp (silver-sharp@aft1493.org) or your Chapter Chair. Chapter Chair names and email addresses are as follows:

• Cañada: Salumeh Eslamieh (eslamieh@aft1493.org) and Doniella Maher (maher@aft1493.org)
• CSM: Teeka James (james@aft1493.org)
• Skyline: Bianca Rowden-Quince (rowden-quince@aft1493.org) and Rika Yonemura-Fabian (fabian@aft1493.org)

Please include the name(s) of the nominee and the position(s) you are nominating for. The nomination period will close at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, November 4th.

Our officer elections will be conducted by mail in November. Please be sure that you have an updated mailing address on file with the District in order to participate.

Why our part-time faculty need equity now!

For far too long SMCCD has not paid part-time faculty equitably compared to full-time faculty in our district, and, in fact, they have paid part-time faculty significantly less than other local districts do.

The vast majority of California community college districts pay part-time faculty a salary based on a percentage of full-time faculty salaries (referred to as the “part-time parity” rate and adjusted for the number of units taught.)  SMCCD has not been willing to do this. Our district continues to pay part-time faculty at an hourly rate, based on a simple salary schedule: 11 steps (years of experience), but no columns to account for educational levels, while the full-time faculty schedule has 25 steps and 5 columns.

In most other districts, the part-time faculty salary schedules directly mirror the full-time salary schedules so that the FT and PT schedules have the same number of steps and columns. The only difference is that the part-time schedules reflect the percentage of the full-time schedule that has been negotiated by the union and district at the part-time parity rate. This provides part-time faculty with a much more reasonable and rational method of pay and more equitable salaries.

While SMCCD is one of the wealthiest districts in the state and SMCCD administrators’ salaries are ranked the highest of all California community college districts, our district’s part-time faculty salaries rank in the lower half of Bay Area districts and significantly below neighboring districts, as shown in the comparison below.

Comparison of Part-Time Faculty Pay:
SMCCCD, College of Marin, CCSF, Foothill/De Anza & West Valley/Mission
Per semester for teaching one 3-unit class

As contract negotiations between the union and District turn to address compensation issues, SMCCD must do the right thing and accept AFT’s proposal to set part-time pay rates at 85% of full-time salaries. As can be seen in the table on page 1, some of our neighboring districts have set and achieved even higher parity goals. As The Advocate goes to press, the Peralta Federation of Teachers (Oakland/Berkeley) announced a tentative contract agreement that provides 100% pay parity to part-time faculty at the lower end of the scale while adjunct faculty at the top of the scale will make roughly 90% pay parity. Setting parity goal percentages was originally mandated by our state in 2001, but our district is one of the only California community college districts that has refused to define pay parity for part-timers and move their faculty compensation to a parity-based system.

SMCCD faculty speak out

Last Spring, in less than two weeks 640 faculty members and supporters signed AFT’s petition for part-time pay parity. Part-time faculty also spoke publicly for equity at recent Board of Trustees meetings. And AFT’s September 10th Teach-In: Social Justice Unionism in Practice, from Part-Time Parity to Anti-oppression Organizing, brought out more than 170 faculty, students and community members to hear and express their ideas on these unfair working conditions.

It’s reprehensible that we continue fighting for part-time equity in a district that espouses equity as a primary objective. Fair and comparable pay for SMCCD part-time faculty is long overdue! By continuing to demand equal pay for equal work, we can effect change for our part-time faculty community.

CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS

Bargaining moves to compensation,
part-time parity

By Marianne Kaletzky, AFT 1493 Executive Secretary

After settling the MOU for Summer and Fall 2020, AFT and the District returned to negotiations for a multi-year contract. Discussions have focused on three issues that have long been major priorities for the union: workload, compensation, and part-time parity. As has been announced earlier and is summarized below, tentative agreements have been reached on a new workload plan for full-time faculty and new provisions for full-time faculty workweeks.

District’s most recent compensation proposal

The parties are currently negotiating over compensation and benefits, including part-time parity. Last Monday, the District presented AFT with its most recent counter-proposal on compensation, which maintains the current Total Compensation Formula (in which 80% of all newly assessed property tax revenue is divided among employee groups, and each group is responsible for deciding how to allocate their funds to compensation and benefits). In addition to the funds from the Formula, the District also made a one-time offer of about $400,000 towards part-time parity and a one-time increase in medical caps of $50 for individual, two-party, or family coverage. The District proposed that labs be loaded at .8 FLC per hour.

AFT’s counterproposal

In response, AFT presented a proposal asking the District for a greater commitment to part-time parity. The union is proposing that the District agree to a parity goal of 85% and outline a series of concrete, timely steps to achieve it. In addition, AFT is proposing that part-time instructors:

• get paid by FLC rather than by the hour. Hourly pay has long resulted in the drastic undercompensation of part-time instructors, since they are not paid for prep time or grading.
• get paid on a “mirror schedule” to full-time instructors beginning in the 2021-2022 school year—meaning that the adjunct salary schedule would include every column and step that appears on the full-time salary schedule. Previously, part-time instructors with a terminal degree and part-timers with many years of experience were especially disadvantaged by their adjunct status, since the part-time schedule does not include different columns for education levels and only has 11 steps.
• for the 2021-2022 school year, earn 80% of the salary paid to a full-timer with the same education and experience teaching the same FLC. The District would be expected to increase adjunct salaries to achieve the parity goal of 85% over two academic years.

AFT’s current proposal also asks for a recurring increase in medical premium caps for full-timers. Under the union’s proposal, the amount the District pays in premiums would increase by $50 per month for individual coverage, $75 per month for two-party coverage, and $100 per month for family coverage for three successive years. The increase would be applied on January 1st of 2020, 2021, and 2022, with the increases for 2021 and 2022 adding to the increases in previous years. For part-timers, the maximum healthcare reimbursement would increase by $600 per semester in each of the three years, for a stipend of $2105 per semester effective January 1, 2020; $2705 per semester effective January 1, 2021; and $3305 per semester effective January 1, 2022.

AFT continues to propose .85 FLC for lab rates

The union’s current compensation and benefits proposal also loads labs at .85 FLC per hour across science, art, music, PE, and KAD.

District negotiators to discuss AFT’s proposal with Board members on Oct. 28

After receiving the union’s proposal on Thursday, District negotiators said that they needed to go back to the Board of Trustees to get authorization to offer additional “on-schedule” funds. District negotiators will speak with the Board on October 28th, with further negotiations sessions between AFT and SMCCD to follow.

Reviewing tentative agreements on full-time workload and workweeks

AFT had demanded for decades that SMCCD quantify the service work of full-time faculty so as to establish more reasonable expectations—and this summer, District negotiators finally agreed. AFT and the District agreed on the terms for a pilot program that will use a points system to ensure a fair workload for each full-timer. Various service activities will earn between .5 and 4 points every year, and each full-time faculty member will be responsible for completing a Professional Responsibilities Plan of 6-7 (instructors), 5 (counselors), or 4 (librarians) points per year. (Nurses and faculty assigned to other duties, like instructional designers, will not be responsible for completing a Professional Responsibilities Plan.) The pilot program will be in effect for academic years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, with faculty making their first Professional Responsibilities Plans in May 2021 for the coming year.

After settling workload, the parties negotiated new provisions for faculty workweeks. The revised version of Article 7 stipulates fewer required on-campus hours for instructional faculty, even once in-person education resumes: full-time instructors will only be required to be on campus for their courses and office hours, rather than for 25 hours per week. The revised Article 7 also increases full-time counselors’ non-appointment “prof time” from 5 to 8 hours per week and gives counselors a voice in appointment scheduling practices.