Welcome to the Home Page of Part-Time Faculty United-AFT at COC.  This site contains important information for part-time faculty at College of the Canyons, links to part-time faculty related sites, and a history of the part-time faculty struggle for union representation at COC.  Please peruse this information and let us know your questions and concerns.  Part-Time Faculty United-AFT is dedicated to our fellow part-times, with the aim to bring about a better teaching and working environment with our full-time colleagues, a better college campus, and improved learning for our students.  Be sure to scroll down this page to see pictures of your favorite AFT organizing colleague at COC!  We invite you to join us in this worthy effort by contacting these indivuduals who are committed to success in gaining much deserved rights and recognition for part-timers at COC.  Thank you for your interest.

After a two year struggle, we finally had the opportunity to vote and elect our union representation!  THANK YOU to our MANY colleagues who have helped this effort and those who have supported us!  This election in itself is a great victory, and we can all celebrate the fact that we finally have won the right to democratic free choice against tremendous opposition.

Recent background on this historic event follows:

Part-time faculty leaders at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita are celebrating a settlement they say removes a roadblock to a union certification election.  The American Federation of Teachers-backed group blames administrators and the board of trustees with the Santa Clarita Community College District for the delay.  Michael Ward, president of the part-time faculty leadership group said, "We're happy we've gotten to the point we're having an election, but we're saddened by the way the district has treated so many part-time faculty members during nearly two years of fighting for our basic right to vote."
July 29, 2003  the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and college district officials reached an agreement in which the district has agreed to drop its objection to a part-time faculty unit, so that a union certification election may be held.  The agreement permits representatives of California Teachers' Association (CTA) to begin circulating petitions at the college in a second effort to get on the ballot.  In addition, after being found to have violated the law mandating that employers shall show no preference for one union over another, the district agreed to issue a statement of neutrality in any potential contest between the AFT and CTA.

The settlement meeting was forced after two statewide decisions in favor of AFT were handed down by the California Public Employment Relations Board and the California State Court of Appeal.

AFT National Representative Linda Cushing said the AFT is allowing CTA an unprecedented second chance to gather signatures to qualify for the election, "For 25 years CTA didn't want anything to do with part-time faculty at College of the Canyons, and refused to represent them.  Only after AFT came forward in September of 2001 to help part-timers form their own union did CTA collude with the district to try to kidnap them in order to control them."

Chuck Whitten, vice-president of the part-time faculty leadership group, noted that the AFT began trying to organize part-time instructors at College of the Canyons in 2001 at the request of part-timers anxious to take advantage of state-funded legislation requiring that health benefits and a pay increase be "negotiated."  According to Whitten, only days after AFT representatives began organizing effort at the college, the president of the existing full-time CTA union announced it had signed a secret agreement with the college administration to force 380 part-timers into the existing 185-member full-time union.  Ward argued that the part-timers were never consulted about that agreement saying that, "for the past 25 years CTA has been dismissive of part-timers.  On numerous occasions the CTA representatives on campus simply refused to allow us into their union."
Ward said that during the spring semester, his organizing committee gathered signatures from nearly 60% of part-time faculty members authorizing AFT as the bargaining agent for part-timers and calling for an election.  Cushing pointed out that that normally triggers an immediate election, however the district and CTA challenged the process, leading to a legal battle that has covered more than 18 months.  "The district has been preventing part-time instructors from forming their own union," said Cushing, "Part-time teachers at COC lost a year and a half to two years of representation, including health benefits and pay raises that, by state law, must be negotiated."  She says the district was trying to "force part-timers, who are two-thirds of its faculty, into the CTA full-timers’ union by creating legal roadblocks delaying any election for as long as possible."  Cushing repeatedly referred to the CTA local as a "company union," and pointed out that a Public Employment Relations Board attorney used the terminology in documents he submitted.
"Part-time instructors at College of the Canyons have been harmed, in some cases irreparably by the district's cavalier and brutal actions," she said, "They've lost classes, lost jobs, lost pay and benefits, and been deprived of their Constitutional right to due process."

The Agreement College of the Canyons part-timers are celebrating calls for ballots to be mailed by the Public Employment Relations Board to part-time instructors beginning about October 10th.

"Although slow and grueling, the legal process finally and ultimately worked for part-timers at the college," said Cushing.  Ward said the settlement means, "We're finally getting the election the law has always guaranteed us – an election that once and for all will allow our own part-time faculty union to meet the district at the negotiating table as an aggressive advocate and legal equal."

IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!

Meet Your Interim Executive Committee, made up of Part-Time Faculty members at College of the Canyons - AS OF JANUARY 2004 THIS INTERIM EXEC HAS CHANGED - PLEASE SEE THE CURRENT LIST AT www.cocpters.aftfaculty.org/
 

President – Michael Ward           President's Message

Vice-President – Chuck Whitten

Secretary-Treasurer – Paul Lin

Membership/ Organizing Chair – Beverly Cope

P-T Faculty Rep – Academic Senate – Michael Dixon

Member-at-Large & Resident Philosopher – Ted Faulders

Member-at-Large - Linda L. Trexel

Please feel free to leave an e-mail with the address on this website below or contact them by clicking on their names above.

An example of the effectiveness and superiority of AFT representation can be seen in the aggressive defense of faculty members that the Ventura County Federation of College Teachers/ AFT Local 1828 made last year against the arrogance and absolutism of the Chancellor of the Ventura Community College District, something that led to his resignation amidst charges of malfeasance.  Read about these developments by clicking on the link above.  We are proud of the AFT! 

At issue all along is BASIC FAIRNESS and FREEDOM of CHOICE, and the COCFA/ CTA and COC/ Santa Clarita Community College District ARE UNFAIR!

Moreover, at stake is our share of the state part-time faculty equity money - designated by the state for ADJUNCT FACULTY ONLY.  For details read related emails on the "JUNE HISTORY PAGE" (June 10, 2002) and "issues/ rebuttals" numbers 1 and 2 on the "ISSUES PAGE" of COC Part-Time Faculty United. 

The COC case is not the only one.  Part-timers at Victor Valley Community College are facing an almost identical predicament.  As was the situation at College of the Canyons, the VVC part-time faculty were illegally accreted into the CTA-affiliated full-time faculty association at VVC.  As was the case at COC, PERB has ruled in favor of the VVC part-time faculty.  Meanwhile, at COC President Dianne Van Hook's urging, VVC has also appealed PERB's ruling.  In many ways the COC and VVC issues are connected, and persons on all sides are waiting to see the outcome of both organizing efforts for their precedent setting importance.  Congratulations to the Victor Valley Daily Press for covering this issue.    Read the Daily Press articles about the Victor Valley College part-time faculty efforts to gain their right to choose their representation at the "ISSUES PAGE" of COC Part-Time Faculty United.

COC's case receives national attention:

Click on the logo above to read Chris Cumo's Adjunct Nation article on the pursuit of free-choice by part-time faculty at COC.  Better yet, subscribe to Adjunct Nation - THANK YOU CHRIS - for bringing attention to our continuing struggle at COC!

Are You On Our Mailing List?  Keep updated with the latest news about COC part-time faculty events by leaving us your e-mail address, home mailing address and in which department you teach. All contacts will be kept strictly confidential.