Assembly Member Ed Chau

P.O. Box 942849, Room 6011
Sacramento, CA 94249-0049
(916) 319-2049

RE: CPFA “Watch” Position Statement for AB-950

Dear Assemblymember Chau,

The CPFA Executive Committee has voted to take a “Watch” position on the CFT sponsored legislation AB-950 for the following reasons:

Overloads, per se, are locally negotiated and vary from district to district. Overloads have always been the prerogative of local bargaining units to do with as they please. A very few colleges do not allow any overload assignments, while others have no effective cap at all on their faculty taking overloads. However, it is important to note that the Ed. Code neither mandates nor stipulates what overloads can be determined or stipulated for faculty throughout the whole system. It merely states that faculty MAY take overload under the terms and conditions, as locally bargained.

If AB 950 passes in its current form, then the Ed. Code will codify overloads for all districts – setting the legal limit at 150% of load. That being the case, it will be next to impossible to get full time faculty to retreat to 100% as a “real” actual teaching load that is consistent with teaching loads of faculty in the K-12, CSU and UC systems. In other words, the CCC’s would be out of sync with the rest of public higher education and once the Ed. Code raises the “legitimate” load at up to 150% with provisions that districts that have a higher load may keep those loads, there will be no turning back.

Setting an arbitrary load limit at 150% of 100% from AB 950’s statewide Ed. Code mandate will put part- time faculty, both in principle and in fact, further away from parity and equity and reduce their ability to make a living by working in just one district, as class sections are taken over by full-time faculty over-loads. While part-time faculty can work at more than 67% now, by working in more than one district, we know that when a part timer works in two or more districts and teaches 100% of a typical full time load, that their salaries, benefits and working conditions are still woefully below what full time faculty would make working 100% in one district.

If full time faculty really want to do the right thing by the colleges, their students and their part-time colleagues, they would voluntarily limit their teaching to 100% of load, a workload that seems adequate for faculty teaching in all the other sectors of public education.

CPFA would support AB 950 if it could be amended to include the provision for part time faculty to teach 67% of the new full time mandated 150% of load. Either this, or mandate that full time teaching loads be limited to 100% with no allowable over-loads except in extreme emergencies, would be the only way that CPFA would be able to support AB 950 at this time.

Sincerely Yours,

John Martin, Chair
California Part-time Faculty Association

Month: August 2013

CPFA Watch Position Statement for AB 950