Dear Colleagues,
Below is our response to the most recent administration update. We have also sent this to our ranked colleagues.
The update you received from the administration was misleading. We would have appreciated the courtesy of a formal response at the bargaining table before they tried to negotiate in public via communications to the school. Here are our corrections:
Unranked Faculty Salaries: CCA Non-ranked Faculty Union proposes a living wage and has always been open to negotiating the “meaningful raises” that are “due" to us. From the start we have understood that negotiations are a give-and-take compromise, but we have not received ANY counterproposals on this issue, which is the heart of why the process has been “impeded."
Unranked Faculty Benefits: We have proposed health insurance benefits be extended to faculty teaching two courses per academic year. Under the current system, unranked faculty must teach three courses per year on an annual contract. This effectively eliminates most faculty teaching studio courses from ever receiving benefits. Administration has made no counterproposals.
Course Teaching Assignment: Under the current system, faculty who have taught at CCA for years can arbitrarily have their lines cut or assigned to someone else, regardless of their experience, student evaluations, or service to the college. This is devastating to unranked faculty. Without some sort of contractual assurance, nothing we have gained with our contract would matter, because the college would be incentivized to replace higher paid faculty with lower paid new hires.
Classifications and Promotional Opportunities: We believe that classifications and promotions should be clear, objective, measurable, and grievable, and not based on the sole decision of the Provost. Ranked faculty have the right to grieve adverse promotional decisions: we want the same.
The administration is still playing hardball with its unranked faculty. We have yet to see any sort of meaningful compromise, only more of the same shaking of fists.
After two years, with half of our bargaining sessions held through federal mediation, it’s become clear that the kind of contract the administration wants is one that locks the current unfair system into place.
A good union contract will make CCA a better school and a better place to work. Contracts based on our proposals have already been implemented at Mills, St. Mary’s and Dominican College; our contract proposals on job security contain standard aspects of union contracts at California state universities and the UC system as well. Instead of fighting tooth and nail against most of the faculty that teach at CCA, the administration could actually do something creative, groundbreaking and progressive, and resolve these issues as swiftly as possible.
CCA Unranked Faculty Union, SEIU 1021
Below is our response to the most recent administration update. We have also sent this to our ranked colleagues.
The update you received from the administration was misleading. We would have appreciated the courtesy of a formal response at the bargaining table before they tried to negotiate in public via communications to the school. Here are our corrections:
Unranked Faculty Salaries: CCA Non-ranked Faculty Union proposes a living wage and has always been open to negotiating the “meaningful raises” that are “due" to us. From the start we have understood that negotiations are a give-and-take compromise, but we have not received ANY counterproposals on this issue, which is the heart of why the process has been “impeded."
Unranked Faculty Benefits: We have proposed health insurance benefits be extended to faculty teaching two courses per academic year. Under the current system, unranked faculty must teach three courses per year on an annual contract. This effectively eliminates most faculty teaching studio courses from ever receiving benefits. Administration has made no counterproposals.
Course Teaching Assignment: Under the current system, faculty who have taught at CCA for years can arbitrarily have their lines cut or assigned to someone else, regardless of their experience, student evaluations, or service to the college. This is devastating to unranked faculty. Without some sort of contractual assurance, nothing we have gained with our contract would matter, because the college would be incentivized to replace higher paid faculty with lower paid new hires.
Classifications and Promotional Opportunities: We believe that classifications and promotions should be clear, objective, measurable, and grievable, and not based on the sole decision of the Provost. Ranked faculty have the right to grieve adverse promotional decisions: we want the same.
The administration is still playing hardball with its unranked faculty. We have yet to see any sort of meaningful compromise, only more of the same shaking of fists.
After two years, with half of our bargaining sessions held through federal mediation, it’s become clear that the kind of contract the administration wants is one that locks the current unfair system into place.
A good union contract will make CCA a better school and a better place to work. Contracts based on our proposals have already been implemented at Mills, St. Mary’s and Dominican College; our contract proposals on job security contain standard aspects of union contracts at California state universities and the UC system as well. Instead of fighting tooth and nail against most of the faculty that teach at CCA, the administration could actually do something creative, groundbreaking and progressive, and resolve these issues as swiftly as possible.
CCA Unranked Faculty Union, SEIU 1021