Legislature delivers for part-time faculty healthcare as coordinated local organizing campaign kicks off
After a summer of continued CFT advocacy, this week the California Legislature passed a budget trailer bill that included critical language – including every component of CFT’s demands – that will make quality, affordable healthcare much more accessible for community college part-time faculty.
With our state budget victory earlier this summer securing a historic $200 million in annual funding for part-time faculty healthcare, the program language found in the trailer bill will help empower local CFT unions to negotiate dramatic healthcare expansion, ensuring that this funding reaches the faculty who need it most, including “Freeway Flyers” who work in multiple college districts.
As the Legislature was taking this important vote, we kicked off the second phase of our healthcare campaign with multi-local membership meetings in both Fresno and Sacramento. These kickoff meetings were a first in a series of regional gatherings throughout the state to prepare for upcoming negotiations at the local level.
“Our members showed up in force today, to carry this fight forward,” says Keith Ford, president of the State Center Federation of Teachers, who are pictured above. “We are ready to do what it takes to win quality healthcare for part-time faculty.”
For more on the regional meetings, check out the
CFT campaign website.
Back to School tour continues with stops in Pasadena and Galt
The CFT Back to School tour continued this week with stops in Pasadena and with the Galt Federation of Certificated and Classified Employees in northern California. Faculty at Pasadena City College (pictured above) are organizing to affiliate with CFT to improve conditions not only for themselves but for the students they serve.
Teachers and staff in Galt hit on very similar themes to other CFT members throughout the state, namely the ongoing need to address the affordability crisis by increasing salaries.
CFT op-ed: Canceling community college classes is shortsighted
CFT president Jeff Freitas and AFT 1521 president James McKeever weighed in this week with an op-ed in Ed Source, urging college administrators not to cut classes because of under-enrollment as the semester gets underway, and challenging them to think creatively to expand course options instead of stockpiling reserves.
From the op-ed: “There is funding available to support the smaller class sizes — colleges should not be using these dollars as a rainy-day fund, but instead they should use them as intended and retain and support the students we already have. The most crucial immediate decision a local college administration can make is to simply not cancel these so-called under-enrolled courses this semester or next.” Read more here.
As we celebrate Labor Day, unions at highest level of public support in over 50 years
As we celebrate Labor Day, a new Gallup poll has found that 71% of Americans approve of labor unions, the highest level of support since 1965. Support comes as a wave of successful unionization campaigns are waged by workers across industries – including major campaigns at Amazon, Starbucks, REI, and with CFT.
For topnotch member-written Labor curricula for your classroom or your union meetings check out our collection produced by the CFT Labor and Climate Justice Education Committee. And for more great CFT materials and resources celebrating Labor Day, click here.
Have a great holiday weekend!
