COLA INCREASES FOR 2018-19 & PART-TIME STEP ADJUSTMENT

Dear Esteemed Faculty,

The AFT 1493 Executive Committee is happy to report that you will be seeing a cost-of-living adjustment increase of 4.02% for full-time faculty and 5.02% for part-time faculty beginning this academic year. The increase is effective starting in August, but will begin being paid to you in your September paycheck. The retroactive increase for August will be included in your October paycheck.

Why the different amounts for full-time and part-time faculty?  In our continued effort to achieve equity for our part-time colleagues (who comprise 70% of all faculty), our compensation model values the labor of our part-time faculty members.  Though the one percent adjusted increase to part timers does not close the gap, it’s another step in the right direction. As we look toward negotiating our July 2019 contract, defining and reaching for parity between part-time and full-time compensation will continue to be a priority.

Speaking of compensation models for adjunct faculty, some of you may have noticed that the District has recalibrated the steps for adjunct pay. In the old model for instructional faculty, the adjunct pay schedule started at Step 2 and ended at Step 12. AFT agreed that it made sense to rename the steps so that Step 1 would, once again, become active. Though it may look as if you didn’t move up a step (or that you even went down a step from 12 to 11!), please be assured that is not the case: the steps have simply been renamed. For example: I am an adjunct (I really am) on Step 8 for 2018-19. I was going to advance to Step 9 but I’m staying at Step 8. Steps 8 and 9 on the old instructional schedule pay $92.56 and $96.48 respectively for each hour of lecture. Step 8 on the new instructional schedule pays $96.48 for each lecture hour. So, my step number has not changed, but my pay has increased and my position on the step scale has advanced. Do realize that these figures were printed prior to the COLA increase and do not reflect the 5.02% adjustment. (Also note the typo on Step 7 in the new 2018 adjunct instructional salary schedule. That lecture rate should be $92.56, not $82.56.)
[Non-instructional adjunct faculty: See the following links to compare the old schedule and new schedule.]

If you have any thoughts or questions regarding the pay adjustments, please feel free to reach out to me personally or to your Campus Chair. Thank you for all that you do and have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend.

Sincerely,
Paul

Paul Rueckhaus
President, San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1493, AFL-CIO
Adjunct Professor of Health Science and Health Education
Skyline College (rueckhausp@smccd.edu)
City College of San Francisco (prueck@ccsf.edu)
San Francisco State University (prueck@sfsu.edu)