Faculty Rights Tips

Last summer, as we were three months into the pandemic, CFA negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the CSU regarding impacts related to COVID-19 on operations for the academic year 2020-21. While the entire MOU (signed on June 5, 2020) covers eight areas, here we highlight the second item, “Preference for Available Temporary Work for AY 2021-22.”

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.

At the beginning of each new term during the academic year, teaching assignments for lecturers are often in flux until the last minute. It can be a challenging time for both lecturers and department chairs, and the uncertainties we face with regard to our COVID-19 public health crisis only compound lecturers’ precarious experiences.

With campuses remaining in an emergency context this Spring in response to COVID-19, many faculty members are teaching online, “virtually,” or though self-directed study. Taking on this work may not always be possible, but when it is, some faculty are concerned about their intellectual property rights as we share our work electronically and in online, electronic platforms. 

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.

By now, many campuses are well into their evaluation cycles. During the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty are experiencing the evaluation process under new and unprecedented conditions (e.g. remote teaching mediated through digital access inequities, virtually conducted peer observations, non-optimal work-from-home conditions, etc.).  Some CSU campus administrations have adopted “do no harm” policies that intend to lessen the stress of this evaluation cycle.

As the Fall 2020 term winds down and we look ahead toward another atypical term of teaching, coaching, and counseling in times of COVID-19, now is an appropriate time to review the Faculty Rights Tips we have offered over the last few months.

Article 27 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) affords all full-time faculty – both lecturers and tenured faculty – the opportunity to apply for sabbatical leaves, which both CFA and the CSU recognize are beneficial to the CSU and to the development of teacher-scholars in their research, scholarship, and creative activities as well as in their instructional activities.