Faculty Rights Tips

With the start of a new academic year, this Faculty Rights Tip should be of interest to all faculty including coaches, counselors, librarians, lecturers, probationary, and tenured faculty.

When faculty are hired, they are often told that there are opportunities for additional employment in the summer or other “special sessions.” For many faculty, this additional employment is a critical part of their income.

Article 36 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement covers the rules for additional work and places a limitation on that “overage” to 25% of a full-time position.

Did you know that you have 42 days to file a grievance if you believe your workplace rights have been violated?

Article 10.4 allows you to file a grievance no later than 42 calendar days after the event giving rise to the grievance or 42 days after you knew or reasonably should have known of the event giving rise to the grievance.

Article 37 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement covers workplace safety for all Unit 3 faculty members—instructional faculty, counselors, librarians, and coaches.

It is the administration’s responsibility to ensure that faculty members are not required to work in unsafe conditions or perform tasks that endanger health or safety.

Counselor faculty often find themselves supervised by administrators who are unfamiliar with the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). This can create problems in a number of areas, especially counselors’ workload and evaluation.

The CSU Faculty Fee Waiver program is a valuable benefit for faculty members, our spouses, domestic partners, or dependent children up to age 25. Article 26 of the contract articulates the details of the Fee Waiver Program.

The benefit is available to all tenured and probationary faculty and temporary faculty (excluding coaches) with three-year appointments.

Have you (or someone you know) ever been called into a meeting with an administrator and you were not quite sure what the meeting was about?

And once in the meeting realized, you were being questioned or investigated about some issue for which you might be disciplined, reprimanded, or otherwise negatively affected? You need, and are entitled to have, a union representative or another advocate of your choosing with you at that meeting.

You can invoke your right to have an advocate with you before or during the meeting by saying:

WTU stands for Weighted Teaching Unit. WTUs represent the effort and value assigned to instructional faculty work. (Coaches, Counselors, and Librarians work in 40-hour or less workweeks without reference to WTUs to measure their work.)

Here’s a timely tip for Lecturers who may be assigned to a class that gets canceled in the first few weeks of the term (from Article 12.5):

“… If a class is canceled prior to the third class meeting, the temporary employee shall be paid the portion of the term worked prior to the cancellation.