Part-time faculty at the College of the Canyons finally have received a date for a long-awaited election to determine whether they will be a union represented by the California Federation of Teachers and the AFT.

Representatives of the Part-Time Faculty United/AFT (PTFU), which is attempting to organize 400 part-time faculty on the campus, signed an agreement Sept. 5 with the Santa Clarita Community College District, the local and state affiliates of the union representing the full-time faculty union on campus, and the California Public Employee Relations Board. The agreement allows the part-timers to hold an election and includes the full-time union’s representative on the ballot. According to the agreement, PERB will mail the ballots Oct. 27 and they will be counted about three weeks later.

PTFU first filed cards with PERB in summer 2002, requesting an election for collective bargaining. Since then, litigation has been the order of the day. The college tried to force the part-timers into the union that already existed on campus, the California Faculty Association (CFA)/NEA, which had repeatedly declined to represent or organize the part-timers. When PERB ruled that the college had interfered in the union question when the law requires the employer to remain neutral, the college turned to the California Court of Appeals. That court ruled in favor of the PTFU, upholding the view of the PERB. To stop the cycle of suits and appeals, PTFU agreed to let CFA on the ballot.

Part-timers at Victor Valley College, which is in the same district, are facing a similar battle. Organizing as the PTFU-AFT, they first began asking part-timers to sign cards seeking an election in September 2001. In February 2002, the administration tried to force them into the full-time union. Litigation followed. In July of this year, the PERB unanimously upheld a March 2003 administrative judge’s ruling that the college had illegally interfered with part-timers’ organizing. Now the PTFU-AFT is again circulating cards with the hope of holding an election in the spring, according to Linda Cushing, AFT national representative.

Organizers continue to build support for a union with local labor councils in Riverside and San Bernardino, and Cushing says the college has shown grudging signs of respect toward part-timers in the face of supportive citizens. [Barbara McKenna / AFT On Campus]

[October 22, 2003]