NEA Affiliates in Action

Organizing
A four-year organizing effort by faculty at Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor paid off on December 1 when the Michigan college's faculty voted to become NEA's newest higher education members.

"Tired of not having any say in decision making, the faculty voted to begin meaningful dialogue with the administration over salary, benefits, work load, and other issues," notes Michigan Education Association higher education coordinator John Van Dyken.

The Lassen College Faculty Association is another brand-new NEA higher education bargaining unit. Faculty at the California college voted overwhelmingly last month to join the California Community College Association.

The faculty, formerly part of another union, chose CCA because they believed the Association's expertise in bargaining and political action would help them improve the college's salaries and benefits, currently among the lowest in the state.

Contracts
After more than a year of negotiations, full-and part-time faculty at Mount San Antonio College in California are working under a new contract, ratified this fall, that provides "significant-other" benefits for partners, an improved grievance procedure, and office hours for part-timers.

Salary improvements for full-time faculty include a 5 percent raise back to January 2000, plus COLAs for the next two years. Part-time hourly faculty will receive a 10 percent raise in the first year.

The University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, NEA's affiliate representing university system faculty on the islands, has reached impasse in bargaining with the state and the university's Board of Regents and is gearing up for a major contract battle.

The university has proposed no salary increases for the first two years of a new contract and increases in the second two years that would be at the discretion of the Board of Regents.

Campus Activities
The California Faculty Association is organizing its first women's conference to be held March 9-10 in Los Angeles. The theme: CFA 2001: Creating a Women's Agenda.

Presentations will focus on creating both a bargaining and legislative agenda around women's issues for the coming year.

In an effort to make it possible for women with children to attend, participants will be eligible for child care stipends to defer costs during the conference. For more information, please contact Nina Fendel at 510-420-1701.

The California Community College Association is backing a $2-million pilot program that will create additional full-time faculty positions in the community college system. The plan has been approved by the system's Board of Governors.

The project, if approved by the legislature and Governor Gray Davis, would allow six California community colleges to hire up to five full-time, tenure-track instructors, who will share their time between two community college districts.

The pilot program grew out of attempts to address the plight of the state's "freeway flyers," faculty who teach part-time in several districts, giving them a full-time teaching load at part-time wages. Unfortunately, the plan fell short of its goal.

"The plan doesn't fulfill it's original intent," notes CCA President Dián Hasson, "but it does have value because there will be more full-time, tenure-track positions for part-timers to move into."

CCA is also supporting the community college system's proposed new budget, which would add $75 million to bring part-time instructors' salaries into parity with full-time faculty salaries.

Also on the CCA agenda is legislation that would increase state funding for part-time office hours.

"Students should have meaningful access to all faculty," notes Hasson. "We want to increase the fund for office hours and expand office hours to include E-mail, telephone, and other approaches to provide access to instructors who may not have campus offices."