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.

Not Teaching Over the Winter Break? 
Unemployment Benefits for Part-Time Faculty 
Your Right to Unemployment Benefits
Here's one hard earned right part-time faculty can exercise two or three times a year, and yet few of us do: The right to draw unemployment pay between semesters and during the summer break (if we ever take a summer break!) is one of the few advantages to being employed as part-time, temporary instructors with no guarantee of "rehire."  For even if we have signed a contract to teach the following semester, including summer school, we can still collect unemployment during those breaks, since fluctuating enrollment and funding can break that contract at any time and leave us jobless.

BECOME AN ACTIVE MEMBER OF YOUR UNION.

In order to remain a strong and respected force for part-time faculty advocacy at COC, we continue to seek your support.  Please spread the word among our colleagues about the importance of union membership.  If you have time to help with the activities and work of the union, your help is most appreciated.  For example, John Bartke is the Part-Time Faculty Senator on the COC ACademic Senate, additional representatives are needed.  We need help on the literature committee and other committees, and we always need help with general planning, mailings, copying, mailbox stuffing, support at the various union and part-time faculty events throughout the year, etc.  Our union is a collective effort as always, so get involved by lending a hand for a noble effort and a worthy cause that supports the work that we do in our respective academic disciplines.

While we don’t yet have a contract that ensures important protections part-time faculty, we nevertheless have rights that we need to become aware of.  The AFT 6262 Executive Board is committed to ensuring that we all know about and have access to these protections and rights prior to completing the negotiation of our contract, and we stress that these rights must be adhered to by the managers and administrators at COC.  Moreover, many of the union’s proposals such as seniority and rehire assurances, should be respected by COC’s managers in the spirit of fairness and professionalism with the intent of building positive communication and morale between part-timers and the academic departments on campus.  By doing so, the best interests of our students and the college community as a whole are served.

MEET YOUR AFT 6262 UNION LEADERS

President (and Contract Negotiations Team) – Beverly Cope

Vice-President Contract Development                       (and Contract Negotiations Team) – Paula Olivares

Vice-President Membership                       (and Contract Negotiations Team) – Pete Virgadamo

Treasurer (and Contract Negotiations Team) –Frank de los Reyes

Secretary (and Contract Negotiations Team 2nd) – Sasha Quay

Member-at-Large (and Contract Negotiations Team) - Rob Collins

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

Part-Time Faculty at College of the Canyons have received national attention:

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.