The one-tier movement seeks to eliminate the legally mandated two-tier faculty system in California community colleges, which separates faculty into full-time (tenured) and part-time (contingent) classifications.
One-tier replaces classification with workload. Faculty are faculty—the only distinction is load, not status.
What would a one-tier system look like?
- Compensation: All faculty paid from a single salary schedule, proportional to workload
- Tenure: All faculty eligible for tenure under the same standards, with clear and reliable time-to-tenure protections
- Benefits: Full access to health, retirement, and institutional benefits for all faculty under the same standard— not a secondary or fractional system
- Workload: Assigned based on institutional need, with adjustments governed by transparent, seniority-based rules
- Assignments: Based on qualifications and seniority under transparent, collectively bargained rules
Why it matters
- For students: Stability, continuity, and faculty who are present and invested
- For districts: Stronger retention, reduced hiring churn, and simpler systems
- For faculty: Equity, security, dignity, and unity
- For the profession: Teaching becomes a sustainable career—not contingent labor
Challenges to address
- Protection: Transition must not displace current part-time faculty
- Cost: Achieving equal pay for equal work requires significant investment
- Structure: Education Code, Labor Code, Title 5, and CalSTRS are built around the two-tier system and must be revised
How to get there
- Legislative reform: Remove statutory barriers that enforce two-tier classification
- Collective bargaining: Advance one-tier provisions wherever possible at the district level
- Coalition building: Align unions, academic senates, students, and trustees
- Phased implementation:
- Equal pay for equal work
- Full benefits access
- Universal tenure eligibility
- Full one-tier system
Community colleges rely on faculty. That reliance must come with a system worthy of the profession it depends on.
For more information on the One-Tier Movement and the One-Tier Model, see the below articles and presentations CPFA has published on this topic:
Grid
New Vision for the College for All Act of 2021
California Part-time Faculty Association Endorses the following Vision The One-Tier Model of Faculty Employment Context: The College for All Act …
