AFT 2121 is your union! Whether full time or part time, we all work here, and have a stake in fighting for a better contract and a stronger college.

Your colleagues, in their work as union members, have been visiting classrooms, making phone calls, and doing everything possible to have conversations with each and every one of you over this past semester. After listening to members and nonmembers in conversations and via our bargaining survey, hosting discussions on particular articles of our contract, and leading regular Delegate Assembly and General Membership meetings, AFT’s faculty leadership (officers, executive board and organizing team members) have developed goals for our campaign to win a strong new contract. We will refine these goals as we collect more bargaining surveys until the end of the semester (so please fill out a survey and share it with anyone you think hasn’t!). Nevertheless, we have provisional goals meant to unify us around our shared aims.

We see these goals as both a reaffirmation of our union’s role in partnering with all college stakeholders to maintain a stellar institution ready to serve our students and city, as well as our aligned and particular charge of improving the well-being of the college’s faculty workforce.

That means investing in the faculty who, together with classified staff, play an essential role in fulfilling City College’s mission. From hundreds of conversations with our colleagues, we can tell you:

• Full-time faculty are not paid enough. Full-time salaries are in the bottom 40% of the state, despite San Francisco being one of the most expensive cities in the world. This is not sustainable and a threat to our mission–we cannot staff excellent programs without competitive full-time faculty pay.
• Part-time faculty lack adequate job security. While our part-time faculty are paid in the top 10% of the state, they do not have job stability, equal benefits, or pathways to full-time work.

Our state affiliate, the California Federation of Teachers, performs a study of the competitiveness of full-time and part-time faculty salaries across the state on an annual basis. You can find their latest study here. This information will also inform our bargaining process.

In recent contracts (2016, 2018, and 2023), we were successful at getting full-time faculty salaries above the Bay 10 median. In 2018, not only were ALL salary cells on our payscale above the Bay 10 median at the time, 99% of them ranked either 1, 2, or 3 among the Bay 10. In our upcoming negotiations, despite the budget challenges posed by stagnant revenue, we are setting our sights even higher, aiming for the top of the Bay 10.

On the part time front, we will aim to protect the competitive part-time salary we’ve fought to achieve and work to improve job stability for part-time faculty. Your elected bargaining team will be deciding exactly what we prioritize at the table, but one thing is for certain, we need to stand together as one faculty and one union to win the kind of contract faculty deserve and our college needs.

If you haven’t already, fill out your bargaining survey today, and get ready to fight for a contract we all deserve!

Annual Holiday Party, 12/18, 4-6 PM

It’s not too late to RSVP for AFT 2121’s member appreciation party at Barebottle Brewing (1525 Courtland Ave, San Francisco) this Thursday, December 18th, from 4-6 PM. There will be food, and the first round of drinks will be covered. In order to get your first drink free, please RSVP at this link.