Board urges State to increase funding for adjuncts’ pay & office hours

by Dan Kaplan, AFT 1493 Executive Secretary

On November 24, the Board of Trustees unanimously passed a resolution urging the State of California to provide additional funding for parity pay for part-time faculty members and for paid office hours for part-time faculty.
    This resolution is in support of a statewide effort by the California Federation of Teachers now underway to secure additional funding for part-time faculty in the California Community Colleges. Several years ago the national AFT published a pamphlet entitled “The Disappearing Professoriat” concerning the increasingly high percentage of faculty in higher education that are not on the tenure track or tenured. At that time, the percentage of faculty in this condition was over 50%. It is now considerably over 50% in California in the CSU, UC, and CC systems. Additionally, even though temporary part-time faculty in the community college system are required to hold the same academic qualifications and credentials as their full-time colleagues, they typically earn in salary just 50% of what a FT faculty member makes.
    Not only does this have an impact on the quality of education provided to students, it also has an impact on the curriculum and on academic freedom.
    In the San Mateo County Community College District, after many years of negotiations, the AFT was able to successfully achieve paid office hours for part-time faculty at the rate of one office hour for every 3 FLC’s (faculty load credits) taught. But this is still not the norm throughout the community college system in California.
    In it most important passages the Board resolution states:
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Trustees of the San Mateo County Community College District requests that the Governor and the Department of Finance allocate additional funds in the January 2015 budget proposal for parity/equity compensation and paid office hours for part-time temporary faculty in the California Community College system in the amount of $30 million for paid office hours, and $50 million for parity/equity compensation in on-going funds.
    The Board resolution concludes with:
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board of Trustees of the San Mateo County Community College District requests that the Governor and the State Legislature allocate ongoing funding for the conversion of part-time faculty positions to full-time positions.
    In addition to the Board resolution, the District Academic Senate will be considering its own version of this resolution at its next meeting in early December, and AFT 1493 is scheduled to pass its version of this resolution at it December 10 meeting.
     As with its recent resolution concerning the ACCJC, the San Mateo Board of Trustees has again taken a very progressive position on an important issue regarding the rights and conditions of faculty. It is hoped that other community college boards of trustees will now make the decision to emulate the work of the San Mateo Board by passing similar resolutions in their districts.