It's not equal pay, but it will make life easier for some part timers in California.
The California Assembly voted 60-0 in favor of AB591, a bill raising the cap on part time faculty loads to 67%.
For the past forty years, part time faculty have been limited to working 60% of a full time load in any one district. This has made life especially difficult for those who taught five unit classes like foreign language instructors since it meant they could only teach one class per district and would need at least three different districts to put together the equivalent of a full load.
This bill would allow those instructors and others to teach ten units in any one district.
AB 591 originally included broader reforms including requiring equal pay and benefits for part timers, but those provisions were cut since budget cuts this year makes bills with new spending unlikely to pass.
The CFT’s lobbyist, Judith Michaels, convinced the group that originally pushed the bill, the California Part Time Faculty Association (CPFA), and the legislator who sponsored the bill, Assemblymember Mervyn Dymally, to amend the bill to include the 67% cap since the part time faculty committee had recently asked for legislation raising the cap and the broader community college council voted in favor of it.
The bill could make an equally speedy passage in the California Senate if the people affected by it would contact their state senators and tell them what to do.
How to Contact CA Senators about Raising Cap on Part Timer Loads to 67%
For every person who contacts an elected official, they assume there are ten more people who have the same opinion but are too lazy to make the effort to bug them. So if you call or email your legislators, it’s like you’re getting to vote ten times.
You can find out who your state senator is and their contact info by going to this link and entering your zip code:
FIND YOUR CA LEGISLATORS
When you call or write, just tell them you support (or oppose) AB 591, and that you are a faculty member yourself.
