Faculty Rights Tips

At times, and especially in times like these, lecturer faculty need to take a leave of absence for a term or for a year for medical reasons, to care for a new child, or to pursue a short-term employment opportunity. In this situation, lecturer faculty may worry that they’ll lose their rights to future employment or to a three-year contract if they take time off from teaching.

We begin the Spring 2021 Term in the midst of a pandemic. In California, where we live and teach, COVID-19 infection rates remain astronomical, and women and single parents are the workers being most profoundly harmed by the CSU’s failure, thus far, to extend paid leave to its employees at a time when schools and childcare facilities remain closed across much of the state.

In these times of COVID-19 and cutbacks, the volume of grievances faculty are filing is higher than ever. As faculty workload continues to increase in an environment of both austerity and changing learning and working conditions, CFA expects that the docket of grievances will continue to grow during the Spring 2021 academic term.

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

By now, many campuses are well into their evaluation cycles. The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) provision below applies to all faculty undergoing any form of evaluation, but it is especially timely for probationary faculty applying for tenure or any faculty member up for promotion.

Last month, NPR reported that four times more women than men left the labor force. Of those workers who left, 80 percent were women and 20 percent were men.

Range elevation is the formal process through which lecturers and temporary librarians can increase their salary by moving from one salary range to the next (e.g., Range A to B, B to C, or C to D).  If granted, a range elevation brings a salary increase of at least 5 percent, or the percentage increase required to reach at least the minimum of the next range, whichever is greater.  

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? While in the meeting, did you realize 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. 

At the beginning of each new term, teaching assignments for lecturers are often in flux until the last minute. It can be a challenging time for both lecturers and department chairs/programs. During the pandemic and economic recession of 2020, these challenges are all the more acute. 

With the start of a new academic year, this faculty rights tip pertains to all faculty including coaches, counselors, librarians, lecturers, probationary, and tenured faculty.