Dear Colleagues,
We have finally reached this amazing moment! After three years of negotiations, CCA administration and CCA non-ranked faculty have come to a contract agreement that put raises, procedures, and protections in place for adjuncts and lecturers.
We cannot emphasize strongly enough that these contract gains are a direct result of member-driven efforts. Many thanks to the Contract Action Team and all the adjuncts and lecturers at CCA who organized and stuck out their necks for this contract. We also extend deep thanks to our skilled and dedicated representatives from SEIU, for starting this process, and aiding and fighting on our side for the duration. The gains we won are detailed below.
But this is not automatic!
Look for tables on both campuses with information on the ratification process that will move us forward:
Thursday, March 2 in Oakland: 10am - 5pm
Friday, March 3 in SF: 1- 4pm
Vote next week to support this tremendous victory and make raises and protections a reality! Voting for ratification will take place the week of March 6 - 10. Vote count will be at the end of the day, Friday, March 10 on the Oakland campus, with a celebration nearby afterwards.
As we move into the next stage, we look forward to meeting more of you, expanding our community, and continuing our work together: implementing, sustaining, and protecting our first union contract.
In Solidarity,
Your Bargaining Team
--
Contract Highlights
Economic Highlights:
Raises for all faculty of 17% over three years:
8% on 7/1/17, 4% on 7/1/18, 4% on 7/1/19, 1% on 1/1/20.
Effective 7/1/18 the current Lecturer classification will be eliminated, and all faculty currently classified as Lecturers will be moved up to Senior Lecturer rate of pay with a new title of Adjunct I. This is an additional 15% raise for the lowest paid faculty, who make up 15-20% of the bargaining unit.
Health benefits for Adjuncts and Senior Adjuncts who teach 3 courses in an academic year and have been at the school for three years.
CCA will be responsible for assigning and paying a substitute teacher for faculty who are sick or on jury duty.
Faculty receiving health benefits will maintain benefits while on medical leave.
CCA will not contest claims for unemployment benefits from unranked faculty.
A timeline for course assignment contracts to issue, after which faculty will receive a course cancellation payment of $500 if they are not given a reasonable alternative class that semester.
$1200 per semester for service on college-wide standing committees: Executive Committee (EC), Appointments and Promotions (APT), Curriculum Committee, and Joint Labor Management Committee (JLMC).
Additional pay for courses where the work continues past the end of the semester.
$500 fee for course cancelled within 30 days of semester
All faculty who served on the first contract bargaining team will be paid retroactively for the time they gave to contract negotiations.
Job Security:
Adjuncts will receive one year teaching appointments over 1 year with 3-years teaching of at least two courses per year at CCA, and over 2 years for Senior Adjuncts if they have taught two classes in each of the last three years.
Courses will be offered to equally qualified faculty by seniority. If faculty member loses a course to another unranked faculty member the College has determined is more qualified, the College must provide a reasonable alternative class or the faculty can grieve the College’s decision.
Promotion from Adjunct I to Adjunct and from Adjunct to Senior Adjunct after six semesters of teaching. (Senior Adjuncts must teach 12 semesters at CCA, even if they were hired as Adjuncts.) Everyone eligible may apply for promotion via APT instead of needing to be invited. We achieved a new process where faculty who do not get promoted may continue to teach for another year and then reapply. The contract preserves CCA’s “up or out” system, but gives faculty who are denied promotion recourse to the grievance process.
Contractual protections for academic freedom.
Just cause protections for discipline and termination.
Grievance process with binding third party arbitration for all disputes under the contract.
Other non-economic provisions:
CCA has implemented changes to summer courses for ranked faculty, which will be mirrored for unranked faculty. Unranked faculty will be capped at four course lines including summer courses, except that cap will not apply to those faculty who have taught five lines with the fifth line taught the previous three summers. For everyone, summer teaching will now count towards qualifying for promotions, longer teaching contracts, and health benefits.
Three-year union contract.
Eligibility to apply for faculty development grants and take unpaid development leave.
A Joint-Labor Management Committee, which will be paid time for union faculty reps. The JLMC will be responsible immediately for developing job descriptions, an evaluation process, and a schedule of special compensation for nonteaching service.
New employee orientations led by the union.
Union leave.
Right to use work email for union business.
Union activities and communications will be a respected part of the campus community.
Priceless
Three years of organizing on campus, from the union election to the first contract, built a community of teaching artists and writers at CCA. Relationships with colleagues that didn’t exist before are now more than collegial; we are a strong adjunct faculty union because of the fight waged to win these significant changes.
The use of creative practices on this campaign has become a model for other art schools and others who are organizing on their campuses.
Alliances among adjunct faculty, students, and alumni have grown into relationships beyond the shared educational mandate. Faculty supported student organizing on and off campus and learned from students, students of color in particular, how to address structural changes in education beyond adjunct working conditions. Undergraduate and graduate students learned the reality of their job prospects as educators and the importance of union organizing for their future economic and academic security, particularly in the face of attacks on education and unions from the new presidential administration.
We have finally reached this amazing moment! After three years of negotiations, CCA administration and CCA non-ranked faculty have come to a contract agreement that put raises, procedures, and protections in place for adjuncts and lecturers.
We cannot emphasize strongly enough that these contract gains are a direct result of member-driven efforts. Many thanks to the Contract Action Team and all the adjuncts and lecturers at CCA who organized and stuck out their necks for this contract. We also extend deep thanks to our skilled and dedicated representatives from SEIU, for starting this process, and aiding and fighting on our side for the duration. The gains we won are detailed below.
But this is not automatic!
Look for tables on both campuses with information on the ratification process that will move us forward:
Thursday, March 2 in Oakland: 10am - 5pm
Friday, March 3 in SF: 1- 4pm
Vote next week to support this tremendous victory and make raises and protections a reality! Voting for ratification will take place the week of March 6 - 10. Vote count will be at the end of the day, Friday, March 10 on the Oakland campus, with a celebration nearby afterwards.
As we move into the next stage, we look forward to meeting more of you, expanding our community, and continuing our work together: implementing, sustaining, and protecting our first union contract.
In Solidarity,
Your Bargaining Team
--
Contract Highlights
Economic Highlights:
Raises for all faculty of 17% over three years:
8% on 7/1/17, 4% on 7/1/18, 4% on 7/1/19, 1% on 1/1/20.
Effective 7/1/18 the current Lecturer classification will be eliminated, and all faculty currently classified as Lecturers will be moved up to Senior Lecturer rate of pay with a new title of Adjunct I. This is an additional 15% raise for the lowest paid faculty, who make up 15-20% of the bargaining unit.
Health benefits for Adjuncts and Senior Adjuncts who teach 3 courses in an academic year and have been at the school for three years.
CCA will be responsible for assigning and paying a substitute teacher for faculty who are sick or on jury duty.
Faculty receiving health benefits will maintain benefits while on medical leave.
CCA will not contest claims for unemployment benefits from unranked faculty.
A timeline for course assignment contracts to issue, after which faculty will receive a course cancellation payment of $500 if they are not given a reasonable alternative class that semester.
$1200 per semester for service on college-wide standing committees: Executive Committee (EC), Appointments and Promotions (APT), Curriculum Committee, and Joint Labor Management Committee (JLMC).
Additional pay for courses where the work continues past the end of the semester.
$500 fee for course cancelled within 30 days of semester
All faculty who served on the first contract bargaining team will be paid retroactively for the time they gave to contract negotiations.
Job Security:
Adjuncts will receive one year teaching appointments over 1 year with 3-years teaching of at least two courses per year at CCA, and over 2 years for Senior Adjuncts if they have taught two classes in each of the last three years.
Courses will be offered to equally qualified faculty by seniority. If faculty member loses a course to another unranked faculty member the College has determined is more qualified, the College must provide a reasonable alternative class or the faculty can grieve the College’s decision.
Promotion from Adjunct I to Adjunct and from Adjunct to Senior Adjunct after six semesters of teaching. (Senior Adjuncts must teach 12 semesters at CCA, even if they were hired as Adjuncts.) Everyone eligible may apply for promotion via APT instead of needing to be invited. We achieved a new process where faculty who do not get promoted may continue to teach for another year and then reapply. The contract preserves CCA’s “up or out” system, but gives faculty who are denied promotion recourse to the grievance process.
Contractual protections for academic freedom.
Just cause protections for discipline and termination.
Grievance process with binding third party arbitration for all disputes under the contract.
Other non-economic provisions:
CCA has implemented changes to summer courses for ranked faculty, which will be mirrored for unranked faculty. Unranked faculty will be capped at four course lines including summer courses, except that cap will not apply to those faculty who have taught five lines with the fifth line taught the previous three summers. For everyone, summer teaching will now count towards qualifying for promotions, longer teaching contracts, and health benefits.
Three-year union contract.
Eligibility to apply for faculty development grants and take unpaid development leave.
A Joint-Labor Management Committee, which will be paid time for union faculty reps. The JLMC will be responsible immediately for developing job descriptions, an evaluation process, and a schedule of special compensation for nonteaching service.
New employee orientations led by the union.
Union leave.
Right to use work email for union business.
Union activities and communications will be a respected part of the campus community.
Priceless
Three years of organizing on campus, from the union election to the first contract, built a community of teaching artists and writers at CCA. Relationships with colleagues that didn’t exist before are now more than collegial; we are a strong adjunct faculty union because of the fight waged to win these significant changes.
The use of creative practices on this campaign has become a model for other art schools and others who are organizing on their campuses.
Alliances among adjunct faculty, students, and alumni have grown into relationships beyond the shared educational mandate. Faculty supported student organizing on and off campus and learned from students, students of color in particular, how to address structural changes in education beyond adjunct working conditions. Undergraduate and graduate students learned the reality of their job prospects as educators and the importance of union organizing for their future economic and academic security, particularly in the face of attacks on education and unions from the new presidential administration.