CFT’s One-Tier Task force and CFT members, after over eight months of discussion, has created a definitive list of basic components deemed essential for what a one-faculty model should look like in the California community college system.  

The work is the result of a team of core community college union leaders and activists, composed equally of both part and full-time members.

Over the course of their meetings, the task force has concentrated on a vital first step—establishing a broad vision of what a one-tier system would look like. To this end, the task force reached consensus on the following nine points, that under a one-tier system that: 

All Districts must compensate all faculty based on the same salary schedule based on a percentage of the faculty member’s assigned load.  All faculty are expected to perform the same duties on a proportional basis based on their percentage of assigned load.

That local hiring practices would apply uniformly to all faculty job openings.

Anyone with a 20% load averaged over the academic year would be afforded the same due process/tenure rights as currently exist.  Including the current exceptions to tenure.  Tenure review process would remain locally negotiated. 

All professional development activities must be made available to all faculty with compensation, if given, provided equivalently to all faculty.

All faculty would be eligible for the same leave benefits (sick, education, parental, bereavement FMLA, military, sabbatical, industrial accident, etc.) 

All CalSTRS service credit calculations apply equally to all faculty.

Any locally negotiated post-retirement healthcare programs must be made available to all faculty.

While the evaluation process would remain locally negotiated, the same evaluation cycle legislated to apply to all faculty.

Existing layoff/seniority rules would continue to apply to all faculty once they are tenured.

At the same time, task force members acknowledged that the goals are extremely ambitious, and that there still remain significant issues and questions to be considered.  It was also acknowledged among task force members that work towards a one-tier plan is a long-term project that will involve a combination of member education, local negotiation, and legislative action.

Future steps will involve creating a survey of members regarding the afore-mentioned points, as well as thinking through the components or benchmarks of a strategic plan. 

The first component of this plan, membership education, has already begun with two events. The first was a presentation given at the AFT National Higher Ed. Faculty Issues Conference at UCLA on February 17th—”One Tier, One Faculty: Reimagining Solutions to Contingency and Academic Precarity.” Co-presented by One-Tier task force tri-chair John Govsky, and CFT Community Council Adjunct Rep Geoff Johnson, the presentation focused on how, despite the decades long efforts to address the overreliance of higher ed on faculty forced to work on a contingent basis under precarious and inequitable working conditions, there has been little improvement. The presenters proposed that in light of the 75/25 Full time/part-time faculty goal, which in fact, even if realized, would not address the longstanding issues of inequity and precarity among part-time/contingent faculty. The better approach, as Govsky and Johnson asserted is to work towards a unified faculty model, where all faculty are afforded the same working conditions and responsibilities, proportionate to load, effectively dissolving the contingent/tenure divide.

In presenting the plan, Govsky and Johnson pointed to how such a model would not simply address academic precarity, but be a boon to current tenure track faculty, by allowing them to 1) share their ever increasing non-instructional job responsibilities among previously classed and excluded contingent faculty; 2) Enjoy the possibility of load reduction without job loss sue to life-changing events; 3) Enjoy larger faculty solidarity and support on issues related to both academic freedom and collective bargaining, and 4) Realize greater unity of purpose in achieving the greatest mission of higher ed, which is student success.

The presentation was well-received and followed with applause before a standing room crowd of close to 40 in a space designed for 25 people.  A post-discussion presentation involving several members of the AFT Higher Ed PPC and upper-level AFT leadership involved discussions of AFT higher ed steps forward, notably, the idea of developing a national strategic plan directed at the elimination of academic precarity.

Of the warm reception Govsky stated, “It’s great to see that national, as well as local, AFT leaders are so interested in what we are doing in California regarding our One Faculty campaign. And the fact that AFT is now officially supporting an end to precarity in higher education, one of the pillars of a one-tier system, is extremely encouraging. I think the movement toward a one-tier model is gaining traction, and CFT is leading the way.

A second event, was a presentation given at the CFT March Summit by Frank Cosco, one of the architects behind the most fully-realized model of One-Tier, established at Vancouver City College in British Columbia, and commonly referred to as the “Vancouver Model.” As Cosco explained, under the Vancouver model, all faculty are paid on the same salary schedule proportionate to the work they do—a faculty member working 20% of a full-time load with the same experience and qualifications as a given full-time member is paid 20% of a full-time salary, not a fractional “parity” rate. It’s three equal pay for equal work.

All faculty are given equally proportionate non-instructional duties as a part of their “workload profile.”  Most significantly, on the issue of job security, that for faculty who work over 50% of a full-time equivalent load continuously over effectively a two-year period, they “shall be granted a permanent regular appointment,” or “regularized,” or effectively given tenure. Essentially, it’s a straightforward and transparent process of part to full-time conversion, but with a twist.  Those faculty have the option, provided classes are available, to increase their load to 100%, or remain at their present workload, and in fact, a faculty member at 100% can in fact reduce their workload without repercussions.

Most notably in his presentation, when asked about the ration of “regularized” or effectively tenured versus non-regularized or contingent faculty, the ratio was “more or less 75% regularized to 25% regularized,” in line with the longstanding 75/25 recommended goal set by AB1725 in 1988.

With regard to the CFT One-Tier task force’s work, Cosco told the attendees: “You’re doing the right job.”

While the enormity of realizing a One-Tier/Unified faculty model clearly weighs on the task force members, it is clear to them that what they’re working towards what should be a given for all faculty, as Malaika Finklestein, a part-time Faculty Member with the San Francisco Federation of Teachers observed, “In our current system, some faculty have tenure. That protects academic freedom by making it hard to fire us without cause. It doesn’t prevent all firings, but it does ensure due process. I wonder: Why should due process be considered a privilege that applies for some workers and not others? Shouldn’t all workers be protected from firing without cause? Shouldn’t we fight for that?”