Bargaining Update #5 Supplement – Note to Part-Time Faculty

Dear part-time faculty,

Part-time faculty are the victims of a kind of cultural crime, one sanctioned by the legislature and committed in broad daylight – a crime as egregious as paying women $0.78 for every dollar a man makes.  And it may seem to you as if no one is paying any attention, as if the rest of the culture is sitting, safe and sound, at their upstairs windows or on the fire escape, ignoring the calls for help from the street below.  We at the CCFF know part-time faculty are underpaid, lack security, and need health benefits.  We can hear you, and we are working not only to make your voices heard but to try to answer the call.

The CCFF has included part-time faculty in its executive board and on the negotiating team.  Lyndsey Lefebvre from English serves as Vice President of the Part-Time Faculty and as member of the negotiating team.  Jay Elarosa from Business serves as a member of the negotiating team.  And Pauline Acosta from Sociology serves as the Part-Time faculty Membership Liaison.  Their contributions are invaluable, and they have identified job security and salary as issues most urgent to this round of negotiations.

Job Security

The Assignment article just proffered to the District proposes that part-time faculty members who have worked at Cerritos College be eligible to earn Associate Faculty status, which would grant part-time faculty already working in a department the right of first refusal for a specific number of available units.  This would ensure that, budget permitting, faculty members would know how many units they would get every semester and would not have to worry about losing units any time new part-time faculty member is hired or the dean or department chairs.

Increase Pay

Cerritos College pays its part-time faculty less than any of our peer districts.

The CCFF has proposed that ridding the part-time salary scale of the first two steps so all new hires would start at what is now a Step 3.  This would also boost members currently working at Step 1 or 2 to Step 3.

In order to help close the gap between part- and full-time pay, the CCFF is committed to proposing 1% more for part-time faculty any time we propose a raise.  The proposed Assignment article also contains a provision for part-time faculty members to be compensated automatically for 18 office hours per semester.

Health Insurance

The CCFF has also proposed to create a committee that will investigate the cost of providing health benefits to part-time faculty, and this committee will have a deadline.

Frustrated? Angry?

If you’d like to help the CCFF help you, there is a chance for your mere presence to send a very clear, very strong, very united message.  Show up to the Board meeting on December 9th at 6:30 p.m.  The Board room is located right next to the President’s Office, which is next to the mail room, in the Administrative Quad.  It’s now that the District is considering the CCFF proposal for a raise, so it would be now that you could best serve your own cause and the cause of all part-time faculty.  You’re welcome to speak during the public comments period – in fact, the CCFF would encourage you to tell the Board your story – but just showing up and filling the Board room with folks who have not been treated as they should is an effective way to elevate the Board’s awareness.

Please let Pauline pacosta@cerritos.edu , Lyndsey lyndseylefebvre@gmail.com , or Solomon Namala snamala@mac.com know if you’re planning on attending the meeting and if you’d like to speak.