The Faculty Association welcomes all PCC’s part time (adjunct) faculty back for the Fall. Important changes have taken place since a year ago: PCC has a new President, Dr. Rajen Vurdien, and the faculty has a new contract that offers a long delayed raise, adds additional office hours for adjuncts, and, for the first time, offers limited rehire rights to qualified adjuncts. Finally, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires that employers like PCC make available limited healthcare options.
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OFFICE HOURS
The newest contract, ratified in the spring, adds two more hours to the six already available to adjuncts to pay for student consultations or office hours, for a total of eight hours a semester. As before, adjuncts set their own schedule and meet with students in ways that best uses the limited amount of time. Also, as before, adjuncts must notify their departments about when and where they are holding their office hours. There are two offices set aside for adjuncts (C-417 and W101B). In addition, many departments have space set aside in their offices for their part time faculty.

REHIRE RIGHTS
The most important development of the new contract is the new provision for job security for qualified adjuncts. The new policy provides that adjuncts who have worked six semesters without a two year break qualify for a future class assignment if their last two evaluations have been satisfactory or better and if they meet all the requirements for the class. The contract provides for the continuity of the class assignment by requiring that an adjunct be offered the same or similar class at the same or similar time as the previous semester. This is helpful to adjuncts who are often balancing schedules at two or more campuses. Any adjunct who does not feel these provisions have been followed, please contact the FA immediately. The new process is still being implemented and, while in most cases, the reemployment of qualified adjuncts is going smoothly and fairly, there are some hang ups.

HEALTHCARE
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandates that employers make available health care insurance options to any of their employees working an equivalent of 30 hours or more. Unfortunately, because the formula used by the ACA to determine if people are working 30 or more hours excludes many adjuncts, it is not clear how many adjuncts will qualify for support from the college. For those who qualify, the school would support them with payments in the range of $200 dollars per month. If you are among those qualified, you received and email the week of September 7 about health insurance.

The Faculty Association will soon be hosting one or more meetings for PCC Adjuncts. We will have information about other healthcare and any new developments, including the details about adjuncts’ responsibility to complete SLO assessments. In addition, we will discuss retirement programs available to Adjuncts through PCC. Please watch for our announcement of our meeting and join us if you can. We know that adjuncts are often balancing time and work commitments between several colleges and keeping track of events at any institution can be challenging. The FA and its representatives are always available to answer any questions from our members, so please do not hesitate to call us at our office at (626) 585-7261 or send us an email at facultyassociation@gmail.com. Thank you.