Dear Part-Time Faculty,

We hope that you were able to adjust to remote instruction and completed the semester on a good note.  If you are teaching this summer, we wish you all the best during your summer session(s).

PLEASE NOTE: If you taught in spring semester but not on a Monday or a Tuesday, we are making sure that the District pays you for your online transition work for the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and/or Saturday that you worked that week of the transition.  The District is finalizing the list, and we will inform you when the payments are to be made.

Here are some updates from the contract negotiations with the District that directly affect part-time faculty:

• ONE HALF HOUR additional conference hour will be offered to all part-time faculty (no minimum number of instructional units required) for the fall 2020 semester (to be evaluated in 2021 to determine extending indefinitely).  This brings total paid student consultation time for the fall semester 2020 to 16 (up from 8);
• Improvements to Article 18 (reemployment priority) that guarantee TWO courses or 6 units, whichever is greater (fall and spring) according to availability and requires a more standardized procedure, with enhanced District and Divisions communication expected (faculty also need to watch the new 10-day deadline to accept course offerings);
• 3.5% across-the-board compensation increase for all part-time faculty, effective already and retroactive to July 2019.
• Maintaining calculations for part-time faculty pay parity at 87.5% of full-time rate

As we continue to push for expanded health insurance benefits for part-time faculty, we are reminding those who have not yet signed the petition to do so now (full-time faculty also welcome and urged to sign!!).  Please use the form below:

An Open Letter to the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees

Now Is the Time to Implement Meaningful Health Care Benefits for Part-Time Faculty!

In a time of crisis, vulnerabilities and inequalities intensify.  COVID-19 has exposed our woefully underprepared national health care system.  The shortages of basic test kits, masks and respirators, and fundamental protections for our health care workers reveal a void of national leadership. 

Health care is a human right, a necessity that every single individual should be provided with.  While our national leadership apparently does not grasp this fact, many state officials and local practitioners have stepped into the void and taken decisive action.   

Our own college leadership has been proactive in addressing student food security, student access to computers, expanded counseling and support services and much more. Student equity remains a top priority, as it should be. . . . .

However, one essential step remains to be taken.

It is now a critical necessity that you as PCC leaders immediately institute a medical benefit for all part-time Faculty.  The details could easily be worked out in short order. 

Desperate times do indeed call for extraordinary measures.  However, desperate times also provide us with opportunities to correct historical errors.  Desperate times require enlightened leadership, and as Board members, it is your time to address health care as an immediate and pressing need for part-time faculty.  Establishing a meaningful plan would be a profoundly equitable action, but also a socially responsible decision during this pandemic.

I am struck that when I speak with friends and associates in the community, they are invariably shocked to learn that PCC’s part-time faculty have no health care whatsoever.  None?  Really? Come the incredulous replies.  All other major community colleges offer some form of health care benefit for part-time faculty.  Why hasn’t PCC also done so?

As a long- time PCC teacher, I have been dismayed that previous Board members have casually rejected part-time faculty health care.  Some were smugly dismissive, while others threw up their hands claiming that it costs too much.  The truth of the matter is we cannot afford to delay any longer. The costs of delay are in fact, too high. 

We have approximately 800 part-time faculty who teach 40% of our class offerings.  Historically, they have been denied the benefit of college provided health care.  They are the greatest number with the greatest need.  I urge you, the Board of Trustees, to move immediately and implement a meaningful plan to address the critical health care needs of our part-time faculty.  Equity demands it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It is vitally important that you join the FA now – we are stronger together, with greater part-time faculty representation and involvement. 

Go to https://pccfacultyassociation.org/membership-information/ fill out the FA membership form ASAP so that you can participate!

DID YOU KNOW that ONLY FA members can:

1) vote on the contract;

2) vote for FA Board members;

3) run for a position on the FA Board.

Questions? E-mail facultyassociation@gmail.com