By a margin of 82 percent, the faculty union at Temple University voted to ratify a four-year contract brought to the membership almost six months before the current one expired.

The contract, which covers the 1,200 faculty, librarians and academic professionals represented by the Temple Association of University Professionals/AFT, provides a salary increase averaging 15 percent over the life of the contract. It also addresses job security and equity issues that have plagued full-time temporary faculty, known as Dean's Appointments, and have concerned the union (see AFT On Campus, September 1998). Now, instead of being forced out after seven years, these faculty can extend their contracts and will receive improved benefits. Permanent faculty also play a greater role in determining how they are used; and the number of the temporaries, as a percentage of the tenured faculty, is now capped.

One incentive to get the contract done early, says TAUP president and chief negotiator Art Hochner, was the advent of a new university president, David Adamany, who was scheduled to come aboard in the summer. More information is available at www.taup.org.

Faculty at San Francisco Community College, represented by AFT Local 2121, rested easier this summer with a tentative agreement settled in the closing days of the spring semester. The three-year contract, which the local's 2,000 full-time and part-time faculty will vote on this month, provides a retroactive 2 percent increase for last year, added to a 3.17 percent increase for this school year, with a salary reopener in the fall.

Part-timers, who outnumber full-timers in the unit and in California community colleges in general, will see gains with this contract, and stand to gain even more in the months ahead, thanks to the work of their union. Local 2121, the California Federation of Teachers and its Community College Council have secured legislative support for the policy of pay equity for part-timers and pro rata pay on an equivalent basis with full-time faculty. The challenge is getting Gov. Gray Davis to agree to increased and ongoing funding--which also would add lines for full-time faculty hiring--and sign it into the state budget. The CFT unions have been effective lobbyists on this issue and won't give up until equity prevails, says 2121 executive director Chris Hanzo. More details can be found at www.aft2121.com.