Top administration has recently “discovered” a significant number of surplus unpaid workload units owed to full-time faculty—overloads that in many cases went unpaid at the behest of administrators during years of budget shortfalls. The administration reports that 107 faculty have accumulated more than 3 units, the contractual threshold which is supposed to trigger actions to reduce the surplus (e.g. payment to the faculty member or a reduction in workload).
On the other side of the ledger, administration says that 39 full-time faculty are in deficit to the District in excess of 3 units, which likewise is supposed to trigger corrective action within several semesters (e.g. a pay reduction or teaching an unpaid overload).
However, it is clear that the data itself contains numerous inaccuracies, and no corrective actions have yet been taken to corroborate these numbers.
The District has already made unilateral changes in dealing with overloads/underloads, including prohibiting overload assignments to faculty with surplus units. This prevented some impacted programs, such as Biology, Computer Networking, and Nursing, from offering high-demand classes because they did not have instructors to teach them. In some cases, much-needed fall sections have already been canceled despite demonstrated student need.
Additionally, administration is asserting that retiring faculty would have to “pay back” units owed to the District and claims that faculty must be taxed for any deferred pay at the time work is performed.
AFT 2121 expects the District to honor Article 18.G, which governs “schedule deviations,” and to notice and bargain over any changes in its implementation, which it has only recently started to do despite making numerous adverse changes. Faculty negatively impacted by any policy changes, please contact your Union at 415-585-2121 or email us aft@aft2121.org.
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