Contract campaign

Lumpia, tiramisu cake & tamales! —
Faculty celebrate previous contract wins
& unite to fight for more at campus solidarity parties

What’s better than spending time with your colleagues — in person, not in zoom squares — while chowing down on delicious goodies?  Solidarity!  That was the not-so-secret ingredient at Skyline’s Solidarity Party on September 28^th, CSM’s on October 12th, and coming up today at Cañada (Wednesday, October 19^th) — 12:30 – 2:00 pm in Building 9, Room 154. At the gatherings, faculty members mingled and caught up with one another while they watched an AFT video showcasing colleagues who spoke out to the Board of Trustees during the last round of bargaining. We learned about this round’s proposals – most of which are stalled at the bargaining table – and how faculty can exert our power to move these issues forward.

Faculty at CSM party watch video of AFT 1493 activists speaking out

Faculty express needs for better benefits and compensation; AFT leaders answer questions

Participants at the Skyline and CSM gatherings were vocal about issues affecting their working conditions and their personal lives, from the lack of paid parental leave to the need for an affordable healthcare plan for part time faculty, to the exorbitant cost of living in the Bay Area and the need for higher compensation.  Members of the AFT negotiating team answered questions and listened carefully to members.  At CSM, they were joined by Steve Lehigh, Economics professor and member of the District Budget Committee, who called out the shocking lack of equity in our district: property tax revenues are steadily growing while faculty are slipping further behind economically.

District refusing to move on key contract proposals

Some of the most important issues AFT negotiators are trying to win in this round include:

• an adjusted salary formula that will provide all faculty with fair compensation – higher salaries & less out of pocket expenditures for health benefits;
• quality, affordable healthcare plans for part-time instructors;
• fully paid parental leave;
• a fair & consistent procedure for cancellation of classes;
• a transparent process for faculty who need disability accommodations;
• further progress toward part-time parity; and
• further increases in lab rates across all disciplines.

The District has refused to move forward on any of these issues!

Major wins in previous negotiations

In our last round of bargaining, AFT negotiators — with essential on-the-ground support from faculty members — won historic changes to our contract.  For the first time, the District agreed to set a Part-Time Parity goal; adjunct salaries increased and an expanded part-time salary schedule was put in place that recognizes experience and education; lab rates across science, art, music and KAD were increased; much-needed protections for faculty subject to investigations and discipline were added to the contract; and a pilot program to address unsustainable workload outside of the classroom was agreed upon. These improvements would not have happened without faculty activism.

Happy means we can afford to live in the Bay Area.  Happy means our basic human needs are being actively supported by the District.  Happy means we can focus on our students rather than worrying about our medical, food, gas and housing costs.

AFT’s Contract Action Team (CAT) organized the campus solidarity parties to inform and ignite our members. To win “at the table” we need to step up and let the District and the Board of Trustees know how important these proposals are for our working conditions and students’ learning conditions.  Throughout the semester, CAT members will be actively reaching out to colleagues one-to-one to hear about your issues and to invite you to get involved.

There’s power in collective action!
Come to the October 26 action to demonstrate to the Board of Trustees & the District that better working conditions matter to you!

AFT’s Contract Action Team (CAT) is planning an action on Wednesday, October 26, at the Board of Trustees meeting.  We’ll meet at 5:15 at CSM Building 1, second floor, in the conference room down the hall from the AFT Office.  We’ll share pizza, do an “art build” where we make posters, and then walk down to the District Office at 6:00 pm.  We’ll wear our “Red for ED” AFT T-shirts, hold our signs proudly, and a small group of faculty members will speak on the issues that aren’t moving at the bargaining table.  CAT is asking parents to bring their child/children to the Action to impress upon the Board and District Administration that many of us want to continue to build our families — and paid family leave matters!

CAT is made up of all of us!  All faculty are invited to come to CAT meetings where we map out strategies to involve and activate our colleagues in fighting for what we deserve: a fair contract! CAT meets every other Friday from 3:30-5:00 on Zoom (link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7052173089)  The next CAT meeting is October 28.

Scene from Skyline solidarity party

Part-time faculty healthcare

Healthcare parity now! Come support quality healthcare plans for part-time faculty on Oct. 26th!

Last spring the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) conducted a groundbreaking statewide survey of part-time faculty, the results of which brought to light the many negative consequences of community college districts’ failure to provide adequate healthcare for part-time faculty. That survey led directly to CFT organizing a major campaign for expanded state funding for part-time community college faculty healthcare, involving members from locals around the state (including numerous representatives from AFT 1493.) The campaign made bold demands–faculty wrote thousands of letters to legislators and the governor, testified at Senate and Assembly hearings, and shared their stories at a lobby day, on social media, and with reporters–and ultimately won a historic expansion of state funding, increasing state support from $490,000 to $200 million in ongoing funding!

The CFT’s campaign also successfully lobbied for a trailer bill that incentivizes districts to provide quality, affordable healthcare for part-timers by making districts eligible to be reimbursed for 100% of their costs by the state. To receive the 100% funding reimbursement, districts must meet four criteria which are intended to encourage parity between full- and part-time faculty. The criteria require districts to:

• offer health insurance coverage to all part-time faculty with an assignment equal to or greater than 40 percent of a full-time assignment;
• offer part-time faculty the same health insurance benefits provided to the full-time faculty in the district;
• limit individual premiums paid by part-time faculty to no more than the actual individual premium paid by full-time faculty in the district; and
• offer reimbursement for health insurance to all multi-district part-time faculty (aka “freeway flyers”).

Based on these criteria, AFT has proposed that SMCCCD give part-timers with loads of 40% or more access to medical, dental, and vision benefits equivalent to those offered to full-timers. This proposal would almost certainly be fully reimbursed by the state. If the district agrees to our proposal, it would save them hundreds of thousands of dollars currently used to pay part-time healthcare reimbursement stipends, which could instead partly be used to pay for part-time dental and vision coverage. The District stands to save money while giving part-timers a significant improvement over the current stipend program, which falls short of covering many part-timers’ total healthcare costs, does not allow part-timers to cover dependents, does not cover dental or vision, and requires part-timers to pay out of pocket and wait until the end of the semester for reimbursement. The District has not offered any response to our proposal beyond saying they want to cost it out, and, as of this writing, they have not given us any negotiating dates since September 20th.

Let the Board know you support healthcare parity for part-timers!

It’s now time to win part-time healthcare in SMCCCD, and we need your help! Come to our October 26th action at the Board of Trustees meeting to tell our Trustees they must provide part-time faculty with healthcare plans. Please RSVP here to let us know you’ll be at the 10/26 Board action. [https://bit.ly/AFTOctober26RSVP]

Click here to learn more about CFT’s Part-Time Faculty campaign to secure health insurance coverage for all community college part-time faculty

Faculty Workload

AFT seeks ongoing feedback about the workload point system to help improve it

As full-time faculty in our district gain some experience working with the pilot workload point system this semester, AFT 1493 wants to continue to hear about those experiences so we can ultimately work to renegotiate an improved system. We want to remind faculty that point totals should be equal to, and not exceed, the required point total for their faculty role. Faculty can only receive additional compensation when their dean asks them to go beyond their required point total, and they agree. The ultimate purpose of the point system is to try to prevent faculty from being overworked by taking on more than the required workload.

Professional Responsibilities Plans: Copies to be sent back to faculty; data to be analyzed by AFT

AFT has received data from the administration from most Professional Responsibilities Plans that faculty submitted last May and we are working to see if copies of those plans can be sent to the faculty who submitted them to help ensure that faculty and deans have the same information to work from. The union is planning to analyze the initial data and to reach out to those faculty who put down point totals on their plans that significantly exceeded their required point total to try to clarify the point system process and check to see if the system is working satisfactorily so far for those faculty members.

Many ways to provide feedback

AFT Chapter Chairs also want to get as much faculty feedback as possible about faculty’s experiences with the point system. Come to AFT Office Hours held at your college or reach out to your Campus Chair and let them know how the system has been working for you. We also encourage faculty to communicate to us about the point system through our new Discord platform. (See the announcement of what our Discord server is and how it works.) Members of AFT’s negotiating team have already met with a group of librarians because librarians have communicated that they face some unique issues with the point system due to the fact that they have certain committee work already included as part of their regularly work duties.

Feedback will help AFT renegotiate an improved system

For years, full-time faculty workload–beyond teaching or other regular work assignments–grew exponentially in our district until it became unsustainable.  We saw many examples of severe burnout, health issues & faculty who abandoned tenure track positions.  The purpose of the point system is to ensure that faculty do not continue to face unreasonable workloads.  In the Spring 2023 semester, AFT will conduct a follow-up survey to get further information on how the point system has been working for faculty. Based on all the data and feedback the union receives, AFT’s negotiators plan to renegotiate the details of the system with the District before the two-year pilot period ends to address the various problems that have arisen and to revise the system to make it work effectively to limit excessive workload for all full-time faculty.