In this issue:

• Early cancellations of classes & conversions of online classes to face-to-face resulted in loss of enrollments & hardships for faculty & students — How AFT fought back
  Between June 1st and July 27th, SMCCCD canceled 141 Fall 2021 course sections; AFT calls for adding classes and a more transparent and equitable process
• Academic Senate and AFT work to give faculty more input on setting class caps
  AFT reps and others advocate for improved communications and transparency
• College Health & Safety Committees play central role in plans for return to safe in-person work
  Faculty call for more consideration of discipline expertise in setting class size
• What Is CAT?  Check out our union’s Contract Action Team!
  Group has become an ongoing organizing body to actively address issues related to faculty working conditions
• Letter to the Advocate: We are still in a pandemic; District needs to take our public health more seriously
  Administrative decision-making must recognize that the virus remains in charge
• Meet Mandy Lucas, Promise Scholars Counselor at Skyline
  “Faculty Focus” highlights the important work of one our many hard-working counseling faculty across the district
• New AFT 1493 group working to challenge gender oppression in our colleges
  Goals are to expose gendered distribution of work and build systems of mutual support and safe space
• District to hire 43 new full-time faculty in 2021-22
  2021 state budget provides funds to increase districts’ percentage of full-time faculty
• 2021 AFT 1493 Scholarships awarded to Nigel Hawkins and Hannah Hersey
  Union recognizes social justice work of two 2021 graduates with $500 awards
• In memoriam: Remembering long-time Cañada College theater instructor and director Bob Curtis
  Bob directed eighty plays at Cañada alone, during the four decades and well over thirty years of his tenure

In this issue:

• Faculty ratify new 3-year contract!
  97% vote Yes! Review contract highlights and questions & answers about the new contract
• Faculty survey reports:
  – Report on Summer-Fall 2021 MOU Survey
  Class size reductions, tech support and work-from-home stipends are priorities as mostly remote instruction continues
  – Report on Survey on Faculty Vaccinations
  More than 90% have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine
• Gender Oppression Listening Space
  Everyone is invited to attend session to share experiences and build solidarity: Friday, May 14, 1 – 2:30 p.m.
• Faculty Focus: Rod Daus-Magbual
  Skyline Filipino Studies professor and Daly City City Council member is working for social justice in the classroom and community
• Ensuring faculty’s right to speak to the press
  Skyline President revises message on media policy after AFT points out faculty’s right to speak to press without the approval of PIO
• Support for Adjuncts
  Individual orientations for new faculty available. Reminders: file for unemployment and health insurance reimbursement. Help with Flex Day pay issues.
• AFT 1493ers in action
  AFT 1493’s CAT team gathers to celebrate contract settlement and AFT 1493 contingent marches in San Francisco’s May Day parade
• Social justice organizing in our communities: SURJ San Mateo
  Each issue we are highlighting Social Justice Organizing in our Communities and we encourage faculty to publicize these community groups to their students: Showing Up for Racial Justice, San Mateo: People with privilege organizing against systemic racism
• In Memoriam: Rich Yurman
  Remembering retired Skyline Professor of English, Creative Writing & Algebra, 1937-2021
• Action Alert: Tell California’s elected leaders: Invest in community colleges

In this issue:

• Contract negotiations are down to one final issue
  AFT’s proposal will move adjuncts 3 percentage points closer to the 85% parity goal. Under the District’s proposal, adjuncts would still be in the high 60s (68% or 69% parity) on the new, step-and-column schedule.  As contract negotiations near a settlement, here is a review of what we’ve won so far
• SMCCD faculty express discontent over adjunct inequities in spirited letter-writing campaign
  In just four days, SMCCD faculty members flooded the SMCCD Board and Chancellor’s inboxes with 180 letters focused on the need to establish Part Time Parity NOW.
  Read some of the letters here.
• SMCCD Enrollment, Faculty & Revenue Trends Over Last Decade
  Over the last decade or so, our district enrollment has declined significantly as have our number of part-time faculty. The number of full-time faculty has increased by about a dozen over the same period. Meanwhile our district’s annual revenues have increased dramatically, from $113.8 million in 2009-10 to $208.2 million in 2019-20
• Viewpoint: Adjunct equity means much more than just pay parity
  Holiday pay, job security, affordable health benefits are also still needed
• Support the fight against major cuts at City College of San Francisco
  CCSF recently sent layoff notices to 163 full -time faculty and 400-600 part-time faculty jobs are also at risk.
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  A new book, Free City, reviewed in this issue, documents the history of the struggle against cuts at CCSF.
• We Are Not Your Model Minority: Faculty, staff, and students co-organize a sharing space on anti-Asian violence: Attend the open forum, “Healing from Hate,” Thursday, March 25, from 4-5pm.
• It’s time for the California Tax on Extreme Wealth!
  CFT-sponsored California bill would implement a 1% tax on wealth in excess of $50 million per household
• Call on CalSTRS to divest from fossil fuels
  $6 billion of faculty retirement money is invested in fossil fuel companies and environmental destruction
• Social Justice Organizing in our Communities
  Each issue we are highlighting Social Justice Organizing in our Communities and we encourage faculty to publicize these community groups to their students:
  – Daly City for Black Lives: Advocating for community engagement in South City budget
  – Young people in Coalition Z are organizing for racial justice in San Mateo
• Next Adjunct Safe Space meeting: April 28

In this issue:

• Negotiations Report
  New Covid MOU for the Spring semester includes renewed family leave and monthly stipends for all faculty teaching online. Negotiations are continuing on compensation.
  – Faculty parents spoke out at two Board of Trustees meetings to push for renewed family leave in the Spring MOU. The Board and District listened.
• AFT exposes district budget and salary data
  As the district bargaining team has been slow in negotiating on compensation, especially on pay equity for part-time faculty, AFT has begun highlighting district budget data showing SMCCD’s extremely healthy revenues and administrators’ salaries continuously ranked #1 in the state, while adjunct instructors’ salaries are significantly behind other Basic Aid districts and in the bottom half of all Bay 10 districts.
  – The district is continuing to willfully and excessively violate the 50% law, which shows their unwillingness to prioritize salaries for classroom instruction
  – AFT faculty reps highlight district budget data:
  — Psychology instructor Shaun Perisho made a brief comparison of SMCCD administrators’ and faculty salaries
  — Physics instructor Kolo Wamba asked the Board if the District’s commitment to equity includes the commitment to a fair contract for our faculty
• Introducing newly-elected AFT Executive Committee Members:
  Annie Corbett, Evan Kaiser, David Lau, Tim Rottenberg and Kolo Wamba
• AFT 1493 Executive Secretary Marianne Kaletzky is at center of our Local’s work in advocating for all faculty
• AFT grievance officers work to resolve faculty issues and improve working conditions
• AFT 1493’s Anti-Oppression Committee organized a Flex Day workshop to allow faculty to explore classroom practices and conditions for equitable teaching and learning
• New crisis has developed at City College of San Francisco
  Hundreds of classes cut, hundreds of part-time faculty jobs lost, pink slips coming for full-time faculty
• CCSF again in the Crosshairs
  An economic and historical analysis of the CCSF crisis
• Social Justice Organizing in our Communities:
  21-year-old social justice activist wins a seat on South San Francisco City Council
• Adjunct Safe Space meetings set for next three months
• Attend or view a faculty evaluation orientation
• Feedback needed on 2022-23 Academic Calendar

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