View full December 2020 issue (pdf)

In this issue:

• Contract negotiations in final stretch: Pay, benefits and new MOU are on the table
  AFT is proposing a parity goal of 85% and a series of concrete, timely steps to achieve it.
• SMCCD provides among lowest health care coverage for part-time faculty in the Bay 10
• Our district provides less health coverage for part-time faculty than all but one other Bay 10 district and is one of only three of the Bay 10 districts that does not provide a district-supported health insurance plan to their part-timers.
• Smaller class sizes needed to develop social justice pedagogy
  AFT Anti-Oppression Committee developed a resolution, supported by the District Academic Senate and presented to the Board of Trustees, to build a meaningful district-wide conversation about equity and a process to reduce class size limits.
• Survey of district part-timers finds most adjuncts do not have other stable work
  The survey also found that SMCCD part-timers rely on SMCCD work to pay for housing and healthcare and are likely to leave district if their pay doesn’t improve soon

• AFT survey finds Covid MOU had limited effects on working conditions
  Few faculty got their class sizes reduced and few faculty applied for leaves in Summer/Fall 2020
  

• Will paid family leave be available again in Spring semester?Full-time and part-time faculty parents remain in the dark about how to plan for Spring 2021 because the FFCRA (Families First Coronavirus Relief Act), which allowed full-time and part-time faculty to take a reduced load without affecting pay or benefits will expire at the end of the calendar year unless Congress acts to renew it.

• In memoriam: Kathleen de Azevedo Feinblum
  We lost a really good one.

• Kathleen Feinblum was advocating for part-timers’ rights 20 years ago
  Kathleen Feinblum was a long-time part-time faculty activist and wrote a column in The Advocate, called “The Part-Timer Voice” over twenty years ago. She was advocating for the same issues that are still being fought for today.  Part-time faculty were actually successful in getting our Board of Trustees to pass a resolution in support of “equal pay for equal work” for part-timers on April 12, 2000!

• Reminder: Part-timers are eligible for unemployment benefits between semesters