Chancellor search
The search committee, with members from all college constituents, has selected three finalists. The committee’s work is now done. The BOT will make its final selection at their 9/23 meeting.
The search committee, with members from all college constituents, has selected three finalists. The committee’s work is now done. The BOT will make its final selection at their 9/23 meeting.
Our next COPE meeting will be Tuesday, August 31st 1:30-3:00pm LINK.
AFT 2121 is committed to ensuring that our college’s return to campus is a safe one. If you are working in-person and you find unsafe conditions in your building or workspace, please use the following form to document the issue. Your union will not share your name or personal information publicly, but will use the information anonymously in our advocacy. Working together as a faculty is how we can ensure a safe return for our students, community, and colleagues.
Here’s the form to report safety problems: https://bit.ly/SafeCCSF
We also urge all faculty to be proactive in ensuring that your department’s safety plan for this semester or next accounts for the many different aspects of ensuring a safe return. A member of your Return to Campus Team, Rhea Dellimore, has developed the following questions (see full document here or abbreviated questions below) to ask of any plan in your department, whether already published or in the preliminary stages of development for January.
Dear Members,
We have three things for you for today and tomorrow!
1) We hope you will join your colleagues at the Friday, 8/13 AFT 2121 Flex Day workshop, 2:30-4pm. You do not need to register ahead of time for the AFT workshops. You can find the full day’s schedule and zoom links here.
2) Click the link below or the picture to check it out this (hot off the virtual press) AFT 2121 Flex Day Bulletin to catch up beginning of the semester news.
3) Over the summer we’ve launched an enrollment campaign #CCSFintheCity we’re asking you to re-tweet/post the following student-faculty video on your social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). Inspired by the poet and CCSF faculty member Tehmina Khan’s poem “The Heartbeat of City College,” this video is the beginning of a long-term campaign to lift up our City. Join us.
In Solidarity,
TEAM AFT 2121
Independent Flex Day, 8/12:
This round of impacts bargaining is done! We obviously haven’t finished all COVID related issues. There will be more to do, especially around safety issues for specific in-person programs. But after a grueling summer, we won an agreement yesterday covering a wide range of issues. You came to open bargaining, showed your strength, and it made the difference.
Highlights include some real wins, most notably a class size minimum of 15 that will keep our classes open and accessible. But we didn’t get everything. Last year, we won a ground-breaking agreement to temporarily provide medical benefits to part-timers whose loads were reduced. We tried to get the District to extend this agreement for Fall 2021. They would not agree, because they could not identify funds for this very costly proposal. Benefits will return to the “normal” contract rules.
Here’s a summary of COVID impacts agreements.
Coming up soon:
With help lobbying from CCSF students, faculty and other locals like your union, CFT has fought and won new state funding, in the form of a larger COLA. This will bring roughly $6 million into CCSF. In our May agreement, we won the right to go back to the table over new funding. We don’t have a schedule yet for those negotiations. We’re working with CFT to get a firmer idea of the exact amount, and our team is talking about strategy and timing to get the most out of this opportunity.
Folks have also been asking about the $1.5 million coming in from the City. This is coming under the structure of WERF, which directs that money to specific things, largely restoring classes and services in basic skills, job training, and equity-focused areas. Use of the money isn’t flexible, so we won’t have much opportunity to negotiate over it.
You can find more details about funding in our July 14th post.
What you can do right now:
COVID isn’t over! There’s more work to do to ensure safety and decent working conditions. If you haven’t already, please fill out the AFT 2121 COVID impacts survey.
Last week, administration sent hard copy letters to part-time faculty, titled “Academic Contract for Temporary Employment”. The letters caused a lot of confusion. On Monday, we posted our initial message about these letters. Since then, we’ve been able to find out a little bit more.
Signature
The college has met their procedural goal by sending the letters to us. You can choose to sign, sign under protest or not sign;the District is not mandating they be returned and we don’t anticipate issues or consequences either way.
EDD
This letter won’t make a difference in our summer 2021 unemployment claims. We may want to change the way we answer the initial questions when we apply for unemployment. That’s a consideration for future semesters, not for right now.
TB Testing
This was just a form letter, with the same wording sent to everyone. There is no change in process – it does not mean that your TB test is due immediately. HR has been informing individuals when our tests are due and we do not expect any change in that.
Working in-person
The letter uses the phrase “report for duty”. That does not mean assignments are in-person. It’s still considered “reporting” even if you’re working online.
Terminating Employment
The letter says that the BOT can terminate our assignments. That’s true, but only subject to our contract. The rules about class cuts, seniority, and assignments rights have not changed. This letter does not change our policies or our contractual rights.
Period of Service
The letter says the first paid service day is August 16th. This is incorrect. The first day of paid service for most of us is August 12th, flex day.
Last week the District mailed employment letters to part time faculty that outline some basics about part time employment, including employment dates, education code citations, etc.. These types of letters are not uncommon for part time faculty at other colleges but this is a new practice for City College. These letters do not change the existing terms of employment or contractual part time faculty employment rights.
The District did not work with AFT on the language of these letters nor was AFT given advanced notice that letters would be sent to faculty. On the District’s part this was a substantial lapse in judgement and a complete failure to communicate. That said, we have since confirmed with the District that these letters are a perfunctory administrative process aimed at providing more clarity and consistency in part time employment during a period marked by substantial class cuts and part time assignment loss.
The language of the letter does not actively misstate the law; however because it only references the Education Code, it paints an incomplete picture. Part-time faculty also have contractual rights that protect part time assignments and employment in various ways.
Again, these letters are representative of a new administrative process. These letters do not change the existing terms of employment or contractual employment rights of part time faculty.
In solidarity,
TEAM AFT 2121
Your bargaining team invites you to join our next open bargaining sessions:
Tuesday, August 3, 2:00-3:30
Wednesday, August 4, 12:00-2:00
Register here. Use the same registration link for both sessions.
In Unity,
Your AFT 2121 Bargaining Team
P.S. If you haven’t already seen it check out this message from a few of your team members on our recent minimum class size win!
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