A unit of both full- and part-time faculty sent a clear message to Cerritos Community College District on Nov. 6: Faculty there share a community of interest, they share an agenda, they share power and, now, they share a union. By a vote of 527 to 216 (for no agent), the Cerritos Faculty Federation/AFT won the right to represent a unit of more than 1,000 credit and noncredit, part-time and full-time faculty. Cerritos was the last community college district in California where faculty lacked union representation. The college tried to split the full-time faculty, who number about 285, from the part-timers, suggesting that part-time faculty gains could come only at the expense of full-time prerogatives. That message failed spectacularly, says AFT national representative Linda Cushing, noting the importance of the vote's mandate for sitting down at the bargaining table. The AFT and California Federation of Teachers have been racking up major organizing gains in the state over the past two years, bringing into the AFT more than 6,000 community college faculty since 2000. [Barbara McKenna]

[November 6, 2002]