‘Historic’ raises for these Fresno-area college instructors for the next three years
A Fresno-area community college district reached an agreement with its faculty union that comes with yearly raises of at least 5% each year for the next three years for part-time instructors — increases the district calls “historic.”
The State Center Community College is the parent district of Fresno City College, Reedley College, Madera Community College, and Clovis Community College. The State Center Federation faculty union represents over 2,200 full and part-time teachers, counselors and librarians at the four colleges.
In a news release this week, State Center Chancellor Carole Goldsmith thanked the board of trustees for “placing a high value” on equitable pay and benefits for full and part-time faculty.
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“Investing in our faculty wasn’t a difficult decision for the board to make,” said SCCCD Board President Nasreen Johnson in a news release. “We strived to address the pay parity issue for adjunct faculty and hope that our actions reaffirm our commitment to our incredible workforce.”
The parties had been negotiating for over a year before the agreement was approved at Tuesday’s State Center board meeting. It passed 6-0, with Trustee Richard Caglia absent.
Keith Ford, president of the State Center Federation of Teachers, told The Bee’s Education Lab on Thursday that the part of the agreement “that actually does qualify for historic” is the wage increases for part-time staff.
“They’ll be close to making a living wage,” he said, “whereas before they were just barely scraping by in subsistence wages.”
Part-time instructors at Fresno City College have spoken out in recent years about the need for better wages after being forced to take on extra classes and other jobs to make ends meet.
They only get compensated for their time in the classroom — not prep time or grading.
At the same time, those instructors teach more than half of State Center’s courses, Ford said.
Under the agreement, part-time instructors at the college will receive a 7% raise this year, plus a cost of living adjustment (COLA).
Those employees will receive an additional 5% plus COLA raises in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.
Part-timers at the colleges who aren’t instructors will also receive raises over the next three years: 3% this year and 2% the next two years, plus a COLA raise each of those three years.
Full-time employees will also receive a 0.5% raise this year, plus COLA adjustments over the next three, under the agreement.
Some part- and full-time employees will also receive additional benefits, including an additional $1,135 per month in the district’s contributions to qualifying employees’ health insurance plans and increased stipends for some employees, including assistant coaches.
Ford said that in this round of negotiations, the union and district didn’t reach an agreement on an affordable healthcare plan for part-timers and that was “disappointing.”
“The district did offer a health care package for our part-timers,” he said, “but it was so pricey that it would have negated all of their raises.”
The union intends to return to the table over the next year to negotiate a side letter agreement. Ford pointed to the $200 million set aside in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2022-23 budget to help community college districts cover healthcare for part-time instructors.
“We weren’t able to persuade the district of the merits of that program in negotiations ... but we will continue to try.”
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