Adjunct Junction (April 2016)

Adjunct Junction:
Your GCC Guild Sets the Pace for Parity in Collective Bargaining

by Ramon Herrera
Adjunct Faculty Representative

While adjuncts are tirelessly providing a premier education to the student body, Glendale Community College (GCC) Guild Chief Negotiator, Michael Allen, has been pressing forward toward a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). He has worked with GCC District Chief Negotiator Ron Nakasone to secure a 1% differential raise for adjuncts; whereas, adjuncts received a 5.5% raise to a full-time faculty’s 4.5% raise to bring parity closer to 87.5%. At the moment, some disciplines are more than 20 points away from the Guild’s goal for parity. Fortunately, the struggle toward parity is definitely not on our Guild Chief Negotiator’s back burner, as he is working with Ron Nakasone to bring proportional office hours for credit adjunct faculty; whereas, credit adjuncts teaching a 60% load would be able to offer their students 60% (3 hours) of a full-time faculty office hour (5 hours), as well as extending proportional office hours for non-credit adjunct faculty, who currently receive no office hours.

Understanding the process of collective bargaining, Guild members are coming together to demonstrate to the District that although faculty, collectively, appreciate economic conservation, faculty have done their fair share by taking pay cuts and receiving no raises in response to the Great Recession, and this has resulted in loss of purchasing power. The Guild has introduced to the District a plan to bring GCC faculty back on track. Collectively, our faculty are asking that the District not only keep the full raises that are soon to expire on June 30, 2016, but include a 3% raise for 2016-17 and another 3% for 2017-18. Michael Allen has made it clear that the Guild is not asking for these raises on funds that are not accounted for, but funds that are now available.

Fortunately, as Dr. Viar has said, we have a “premier institution!” Glendale Community College is located in beautiful Verdugo Hills community of Glendale, California --operated and instructed by wonderful faculty and staff making it number one of the Los Angeles County community colleges in regards to transfer rates to four year institutions. Working together, the college will not only continue to rank high on transfer rates, but also on retention, growth, and completion rates. This means collectively we will be a model higher education institution!

A call to action has been given by our Guild leadership, and, again, faculty have responded in wonderful numbers. This is not only encouraged, but needed to ensure a fair collective bargaining agreement. Stories like Cindy Pollack’s presentation at the Board of Trustees’ meeting on April 19, 2016, where she gave an account of losing her home on an adjunct’s salary, need to be heard to demonstrate to the community that the struggle is real.

Visit us on the web: www.glendale.edu/guild and http://gccguild.org

@GCCGuild