Part-Time Faculty

The only word for the faculty employment practices of California community college districts (as reported by Lewis) is “exploitation” in its classic Marxist sense--theft of labor.

Government and the unions would shut down any private employer who tried to institutionalize a “two-tier” employment system resulting in some workers being employed for as long as 20 years at 20% the salary (less than 15%, if benefits are included) of other workers of equal qualifications and experience. As long as the employers are public school districts, however, legislative overseers and boards of trustees can ignore labor practices which would make a 19th-Century robber baron blush. “Exploitation” is such a nasty word; they’d much prefer just to call it “optimum utilization of budgeted resources.”

And the faculty unions work hand-in-glove with exploitative management.

Since part-time community college faculties cannot or will not simply refuse to accept exploitative employment, the only remedies for the disgraceful labor practices will have to come from legislation and labor action.

First, the Legislature should forbid districts from hiring any faculty on a “temporary” part-time basis without a specific contractual definition of the length of “temporary.”

Second, as long as community college budgeting remains on a district basis, “temporary” part-time faculty must be organized in and represented by a different union than the one which protects the interests of the full-time faculty. Maybe part-timers belong in whatever union represents the grounds workers and kitchen help, since they hold equivalent status.

J.L. JONSSON

Long Beach