Topic: Workplace Rights
California Supreme Court affirms appeal court decision: “Vergara v. California” is over
A summary of the Vergara lawsuit
Educators applaud Supreme Court ruling in meritless Vergara lawsuit
August 22, 2016 — Statement by CFT
President
“We applaud the state Supreme Court’s affirmation of the appeal
court decision,” said Joshua Pechthalt, president of the
California Federation of Teachers. “The teacher shortage facing
California has been stoked by the Vergara case, the expensive
publicity machine surrounding it, and the constant attacks by
so-called reformers on teachers and public education.
- Answer to Petition for Review of Intervenors-Respondents CFT/ CTA
- Appellate Court decision overturning Vergara Lawsuit
- News Conference Prior to Oral Arguments in Appeal of Flawed Vergara Ruling
- CFT/CTA Appeal Brief
- California Educators Appeal Decision in Meritless Vergara Lawsuit,
- Judge’s final “Vergara” ruling an attack on teachers, Education unions to appeal
- AFT
- Award-winning teachers
- Civil rights organizations
- Appendix
- Constitutional law professors
- Educational scholars
- NEA
- School board officials
- Unions
- Read more
Will you be eligible for unemployment this summer?
By Grace Chee
At the end of each semester or academic term, full-time faculty go on break, while adjunct faculty become unemployed or underemployed — still working and making less than $600 per week — until the next semester or term starts.
During these periods, you may be eligible to receive unemployment insurance benefits of up to $450 a week, for up to 26 weeks per year in California.
Food service workers serve up fresh attitude
Staff and menus adapt to changing culture of nutrition
Something good is cooking in campus cafeterias, and the recipe includes happier staffs. From school kitchens in Berkeley to community college taquerías in San Diego, classified AFT locals are raising wages and winning full-time status for food service employees.
Workers’ Rights Boards: Making a difference in the lives of educators
PETALUMA
Over the past few months, teachers in two California cities have
looked to a new labor-community institution to help resolve
seemingly intractable problems in negotiations.
Three tips to avoid digital grief at work
Guardian of campus computer network offers advice
Greg Whaling isn’t the tech geek down the hall that everyone calls when the wifi goes south. Instead, the Data Communications Specialist is a guardian of a college computer network, protecting it against attacks by hackers and misuse by those on campus.
His duties at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley include monitoring calls, emails, internet traffic, and surveillance video from the employer’s information systems. If it happens on campus, Whaling likely knows about it.
Paying for time but not for space: The need for a “room of one’s own” on campus
FIRST PERSON | Linda Sneed
We all know that our work takes place not just during scheduled class meetings, in classrooms on college campuses. We work in many times and places: early in the morning, through mealtimes, and late at night; in our cars, on public transportation, on our phones and personal computers, at home, in coffee shops, in public libraries.
Lessons learned: Wronged Peralta part-time instructors rehired
Sociology instructor Cynthia Mahabir is back in the classroom. What did it take to get her there, after her district mysteriously refused to honor its contract with faculty and rehire her after 17 years of teaching at Laney College?
Union works to squelch temporary positions that last for years
CFT-sponsored AB 1066 will close loophole in Education Code
It’s a little after 9 and morning drive time is easing on San Diego freeways. Disc Jockey Gary Beck is in the broadcast booth at jazz station KSDS, doing what he has loved since the 1960s: spinning records.
Beck and afternoon DJ Ron Dhanifu have more than 80 years on-air between them. When KSDS — a nonprofit FM station based at San Diego City College — holds its twice-yearly pledge drives, the two DJs bring in the majority of donations.
National Adjunct demonstrations sweep the country
Precarious employment issue re-emerges in national spotlight
National Adjunct Walkout Day began at UC Santa Cruz with lecturers lined up behind the large puppet of “Saint Precaria.” They then walked through the wooded campus to the amused response of students.
Rehire rights: Long-time instructor describes pain of losing assignment
Outpouring of faculty and student support
What happens when your employer disregards your contractually negotiated rehire rights? Part-time instructors at Oakland’s Laney College recently found out. One of them is Cynthia Mahabir, a sociology instructor and Part-Time Representative on the executive board of the Peralta Federation of Teachers.
New law asks staff to perform more medical procedures
School employees “volunteer” to medicate students in danger
Senate Bill 1266, introduced by Republican Senator Bob Huff (Diamond Bar), and signed by Gov. Brown on September 16, requires public schools to stock emergency epinephrine auto injectors, known as EpiPens, on campus. This is an expansion of the law that said schools could stock the devices for students with a severe allergy to make it a mandate that all schools have the device on hand.
Staff seek fair unemployment compensation
Bill to bring equity stalled in Legislature
Linnette Robinson has worked with special needs students at Berkeley High School for four years, after two years in the district’s elementary and junior high schools.
Yet every winter and summer, Robinson and tens of thousands of other classified employees across California scrape by during involuntary “vacations” the best they can. Because while other workers receive unemployment benefits during seasonal breaks, school staff do not.
Landmark Cervisi decision turns 25: Part-time faculty won unemployment benefits
In 1989, the San Francisco Community College Federation won a landmark legal victory that provides unemployment benefits to many faculty members during layoffs.
Staff seek equal access to unemployment benefits
Employees struggle to make ends meet when the paycheck stops during school breaks
Linnette Robinson has worked with special needs students at Berkeley High School for four years. Every winter and summer, Robinson, who has worked stints at other elementary and middle schools, tightens her belt and scrapes by during school breaks the best she can. “Most of us won’t see a paycheck from mid-June to the end of September,” she said.
When do you qualify for unemployment benefits?
If you are teaching summer school, you may qualify for unemployment benefits in the periods before or after summer session. If you do not have a summer or fall teaching assignment, or another job, you may be entitled to unemployment benefits.
This results from a 1989 legal challenge brought by the CFT in the landmark case Cervisi v. California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.
Photographer brings the art of class struggle to wide audience
Previously censored works of San Diego professor Fred Lonidier in Whitney Biennial
Fred Lonidier’s artwork depicting the lives and struggles of maquiladora workers was banished from the Autonomous University of Baja California in 2005. This month artwork telling the story of that censorship will go up on the walls of New York’s prestigious Whitney Museum of American Art as part of its renowned Biennial exhibition.
New Know Your Rights booklet available!
The Council of Classified Employees has produced a valuable new booklet. Know Your Rights: A guide to workplace laws for classified employees and paraprofessionals in California is a comprehensive analysis of the California Education Code as it relates to support staff in California public schools and colleges.
The booklet includes topics such as:
Negotiating the new Diastat law
Puts employees in position of performing medical procedures
The passage of SB 161 last year allows administration of a prescription dose of valium by a non-medical K-12 school employee volunteer to students with seizure disorders. CFT opposed this legislation because we believed it placed school employees in the position of performing tasks better performed by medical professionals. Nonetheless, it is now law.
Who’s spying on you? Protecting your privacy in the age of servers and social media – 6 Maxims for your digital work life
Protecting your privacy in the age of servers and social
media
By Robert J. Bezemek And David Conway
Almost everyone uses social media. Whether it’s emailing, surfing the web, sending text messages, tweeting or tumblr, we are treating social media as an extension of our personal conversations with family, friends and co-workers. And we do it from every imaginable location — public transit, automobiles, restaurants, parks, sidewalks, the office, and throughout the campuses where we work.
No on Prop. 32: Don’t let billionaires take away our voice
California voters appear poised to reject a November ballot measure that would ban political contributions by payroll deduction, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they opposed Proposition 32, which would eliminate the main fundraising tool of unions. Just 36 percent said they supported the measure.