It is difficult to choose one particular day of this past academic year that I am proud of because almost everything is a work in progress as we continue to improve our circumstances and then work to maintain what we have gained or further improve upon it.
Throughout this past year, I have mentioned how elated I have been and appreciative of all the hard work that went into tentatively agreeing upon and then ratifying the Part-Time Faculty Health Insurance Program. However, January 1, 2025 stands out as a special day for me and all of us in the Guild leadership and the GCC District leadership. January 1, 2025 is the day that the Part-Time Faculty Insurance Program went into effect. I, along with others in the Guild leadership (both Guild Exec and Guild negotiations team), have received testimonials from our members of how life changing the Health Insurance Program has been. Some of the one-on-one conversations have been quite emotional.
During the March 2025 CFT Community College Council meeting, I had the wonderful opportunity to report to the CFT and our locals that Glendale Community College fully implemented the Part-Time Faculty Insurance Program starting January 1, 2025 with over 160 part-time faculty members participating in the program. As I provided my report, I felt proud to be a member of the GCC family. I told those in attendance that our part-time faculty members who participate in the program have 100% of their premiums covered by the College and have access to the same health insurance options and benefits that full-time faculty receive.
As a union local leader working with like-minded leaders, it has always been our goal to work towards greater parity for our part-time sisters, brothers, and siblings, while we continue to improve upon the circumstances for full-time faculty. As you can imagine, this is no simple feat. Our Guild is special in that most of our full-time faculty support the goal of parity for part-time faculty. Of course, the devil is in the details regarding how we get there. We have made progress in this endeavor from establishing a clear definition of parity, which includes class hours and office hours. This provides us with a target to strive towards. The Guild has also negotiated ancillary pay, office hours proportional to their load that are paid at the regular hourly rate for part-time faculty. Moreover, at the end of last fall, the Guild and District negotiated an adjunct faculty placement initiative that is designed to cost out efforts to implement compensation parity for our part-time siblings.
As you can see, although I chose January 1, 2025 when we fully implemented our Part-Time Faculty Insurance Program as the day I am particularly proud of, everything truly is a work in progress, especially the campaign for part-time faculty parity. My colleague and friend, Juliann Wolfgram, who is the 2nd vice president of the Guild, recently received the Exceptional Adjunct Faculty Award. At the end of her short speech when she received her award, she stated, “Equity in pay is equity for students.” As a union, we advocate for and work towards fairness and as we improve the working conditions of part-time faculty, the learning environment also improves for our students. It is truly an honor and privilege to have the opportunity to work with dedicated and compassionate individuals on this vital mission to improve working conditions for all our faculty members, which in the best cases will translate to better learning conditions and experiences for our students.
Richard T. Kamei
May 17, 2025
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