Know Your Rights

By: Barbara Hanfling, FA, AFT 6157 Executive Director

1. Adjunct Faculty: Right to Collect Unemployment over the Intersession

Adjunct faculty have the right to collect unemployment (UE) over intersession, based on a Supreme Court decision filed by the CFT called Cervisi et al vs. Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board. The Superior Court stated the following: “…the assignment form issued to the instructors stated that: ‘employment is contingent upon adequate class enrollment.’” The Court also held that the record established that the offers of employment made by the school employer were “contingent on adequate enrollment, funding, and the approval of the District’s Board of Governors.”

The Superior Court concluded that “under the statute, an assignment that is contingent on enrollment, funding, or program changes is not a ‘reasonable assurance’ of employment.” Based on this Court Decision fought for by San Francisco CFT local, adjunct faculty now enjoy a right and privilege that can help them through the times when they are not teaching. If you wish to collect unemployment, you must apply in a timely manner. Therefore, it is important that you access the unemployment board web site for all the information you might need.

First file your claim for unemployment benefits with your local UE office. If your claim is denied at the local level, you must appeal this denial within the time frame listed on the denial form. Also remember that even if you have a contract for teaching for the spring semester, you must answer no to the question of whether you have a guarantee to work. That contract is not a guarantee as you know; you can be bumped from this contract. You may want to mention the Cervisi decision listed above when you are applying for UE benefits. Please feel free to contact the FA, AFT 6157 if you have any questions, and consult the following sites for more information:

Unemployment- www.edd.ca.gov

CPFA- www.cpfa.org/unemployment.html

FACCC- www.faccc.org/part_time/parttime.htm

2. Transfer Rights: By now all faculty have received the email announcement that there are numerous transfer opportunities for full time tenured faculty members. Faculty have 10 working days from Monday, December 3 (until Friday December 14, 2007) to email the President of the campus where the position resides and let him know about your interest in the transfer opportunity.

Our contract language allows faculty to request a transfer either within their own college or to the other college. Our language is also very clear and strong that a transfer is almost always granted to a tenured faculty member (unless extenuating circumstances exist). Please check the list put out by Human Resources and indicate your interest to the President (Article 16.4.2)

3. Catastrophic Leave Bank; About 3 years ago, the Union fought diligently to bargain a catastrophic leave bank for faculty members who are themselves seriously ill or who must care for a seriously ill family member. This catastrophic leave bank (See 13.21) is only available to faculty members under the following conditions:

1. They must have used up their entire sick leave accrual

2. They must have verification from their physician

3. The President of the FA, AFT 6157 and the Assistant Chancellor of Human resources must agree that the faculty fits within the education code definition of seriously ill.

Faculty have recently received a call from our President David Yancey that we need to reinvigorate our catastrophic leave bank. We have a faculty member with an extremely serious illness and we want to ensure that the faculty member remains on payroll as long as possible to continue her medical benefits until the faculty member is available to return to work.

This is the time for you to go to
www.fa-aft6157.org under Contract, then forms on the left hand side of the web page you can download the form and submit it to Mellanie Reynolds in Human Resources. Please understand that the sick leave sitting in your sick leave account is not worth as much as the important donation to a fellow seriously ill faculty member. Remember that this Catastrophic Leave bank will also be available for you if necessary.