FAQ

P-fac is the Part-time Faculty Association of Columbia College, the local college union. It is a member of the Illinois Education Association (IEA) which in turn is a member of the National Education Association (NEA). The NEA has more than 2.5 million members, many of whom are K-12 public school teachers. Higher education is a small but growing part of the IEA/NEA. Staff members (sometimes called Education Service Professionals, or ESPs) are also part of the NEA; one example is Columbia’s own United Staff of Columbia College, USofCC.

The IEA/NEA provides legal, technical, and financial support to member unions. Another major function is to endorse candidates and lobby officials who favor education funding and improvement. The IEA serves locals through its regions, most notably by assisting with contract negotiations. Both the IEA and NEA also provide benefits to individual members, described in detail on their websites.

Who is eligible for union membership? How do I join?

At the beginning of their second semester of teaching, part-time faculty automatically become part of the Bargaining Unit, the group represented by P-fac and covered by its contract with the College. To become a full, voting member, a faculty member fills out an official membership form (sent to all eligible faculty by P-fac, or available from the P-fac office). This also allows faculty to select automatic dues deduction. Only full members may vote, become department representatives, serve on committees, or be elected as delegates to state and national conferences. All Bargaining Unit members are covered by contract provisions, including the right to assistance from P-fac if they have problems.

Part-time teachers who are full-time graduate students, staff or administrators at Columbia are not eligible for P-fac membership. However, a part-time staff member who also teaches part-time is eligible for both P-fac and US of CC (the staff union, also a member of IEA/NEA).

How can I contribute to P-fac’s efforts?

You can contribute ideas at any time by contacting your department rep or the P-fac office. You can attend the annual membership meeting (held in mid-November). You can become a department rep, committee appointee representing P-fac, or run in an election for delegates to the IEA or NEA annual conferences. You can run for Steering Committee office. You can vote. And in your day-to-day dealings with colleagues and administrators, you can discuss issues and express your support for P-fac and for greater equality and fairness. Contingent faculty employment (a nationwide phenomenon) exists for the temporary benefit of institutions, not for the well-being of faculty or, indeed, their students. It’s largely up to us as union members to improve the system.

What if I don’t want to be in P-fac?

We would of course encourage you to consider the importance of the role the union plays in improving working conditions for you and your colleagues. However, the contract (and labor law) recognizes that people in some situations have legitimate reasons for not joining a union. For example, a person whose full-time job calls for negotiating as management with the union at her/his main workplace would have a conflict of interest by joining P-fac and can ask (in writing, with documentation) for exemption from membership. Some people have religious objections; they need to document this (in writing). Faculty in these categories are required to donate the equivalent of dues to the P-fac Scholarship Fund at Columbia or to a charity on IEA’s approved list.

Any faculty member can choose to be a fee-payer instead of a member. Because fee-payers receive collective bargaining benefits, they are required by law to pay the equivalent of dues, minus the portion ($10) for the Political Action Fund. Anyone who does not fill out a membership form is assumed to be a fee-payer; i.e in the Bargaining Unit only. So please be sure to fill out the form if you do want to be a full member!

How much are dues? How and when do I pay?

Dues are $100 per semester (fall and spring, not summer). If you sign up for automatic payroll deduction, dues will be subtracted from your fifth paycheck each semester. Otherwise, you need to send P-fac a check. You can also pay via Paypal on this website, although there is a $5 surcharge.

Where do my dues go? What benefits do I get from my dues?

Of your $100, approximately $77 goes to IEA/NEA, and $10 goes to the political action fund, IPACE, used primarily to support candidates and lobby for education-related issues. A portion of the NEA/IEA dues is returned to members indirectly through programming, contract support, and organizing activities. (For example, when P-fac was organizing, IEA funds helped us get started.)

P-fac’s share of the dues, approximately $13, supports many activities including on-campus events, expenses such as postage, conference attendance, and savings for a potential strike fund.

Dues does not pay for running and maintaining the P-fac office, as our contract provides for the College to pay for our office overhead costs (see Article XII).

What happens if I owe dues for a past semester?

If you don’t pay, you will be put on the “no hire” list and will not be allowed to teach until you pay. To be eligible to teach in Fall, pay by August 1; for Spring, by December 15.

What is the “no hire list”? What do I do if my chair or coordinator says I am on it?

The “no hire” list is the list of part-time faculty who owe dues to P-fac. If you are on it, you need to immediately pay P-fac, so you can be removed from the list. It is suggested that you sign up for automatic dues deduction so you can permanently avoid this problem.

What benefits and protections does our contract include?

The most visible benefit the contract provides is salary increases: a second-semester teacher in the Bargaining Unit makes more than twice as much per 3-hour class as a first-semester instructor, not yet in the Bargaining Unit, does. Further increases occur each year of the contract, and as a P-fac member gains seniority. (See Article XI.)

Other provisions of the contract cover Academic Freedom (Article IV), Governance (Article V) which involves various forms of P-fac participation in College affairs, Workload (Article VIII), Grievance Procedure (Article IX) and Disciplinary Appeal (Article X). The longest article, Appointment/Reappointment (Article VII), covers replacement classes, “bumping,” notification of schedule and curriculum changes, remediation procedures for unsatisfactory teaching performance, and academic year appointments.

It should be noted that some contract protections (especially those providing for replacement classes and remediation) apply only to faculty who have accumulated at least 51 credit hours of teaching at Columbia.

Benefits available to all include remission of undergraduate tuition, professional development grants, one paid sick day per semester, and a $100 cancelled class fee.

Part-time faculty may also elect to use pre-tax income to pay for public transportation, parking, and contributions to TIAA-CREFF retirement funds via payroll deductions.

Also, the rights to participate freely in union business and to have a union representative present upon request are rights guaranteed to all not only by our contract, but by labor law. These are main differences between workplaces with collective bargaining and those without it.

Why don’t we have health care?

P-fac has tried many times over many years to obtain health insurance and/or health care for our members. Although we have not given up, there are many extremely difficult obstacles to overcome. (For a detailed discussion, see the 2005 Health Care Report). Some involve the nationwide inadequacy of the United States system of healthcare and health insurance. Closer to home, a shortcut explanation might be called the difficulty of finding sponsors. The Columbia College administration has repeatedly refused to extend any portion of its healthcare provisions for fulltimers to part-timers. Insurance companies refuse to insure us because they regard our group as too small, too transient, and too likely to include people with actual health problems. And IEA/NEA isn’t interested in providing coverage to a small subgroup (contingent higher education faculty) because the vast majority of its members work in public school districts and thus have an entirely different set of concerns related to their employer-provided healthcare.

The P-fac report encourages support of universal coverage provided by the state and/or federal governments.

Where is the P-fac office, and when is it open?

The P-fac office is Room 811G on the eighth floor of the 600 S. Michigan building. Office hours vary slightly from semester to semester, but during the school year the office is open Monday through Friday, most often from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Summer hours are usually two days a week. Specific hours are posted at the office and described in the P-fac voice mail message. The phone number is 312-369-7485.

Who is my department representative, and what does he/she do?

A department representative can help you directly with intradepartmental concerns as well as connect you with the Steering Committee and other union resources. Department reps also meet each semester with the department chair to discuss current issues. As a college-wide group, they elect three specialized members of the Steering Committee: Negotiations Chair, Membership Chair, and Publicity Chair. Names of current department reps are listed here. (LINK)

If I want to be a department representative, what should I do?

Departments are entitled to one P-fac representative for every 10 members, with a minimum of one rep for smaller departments. Since, with rare exceptions, departments have fewer members than they are entitled to, it’s usually possible to become a department rep simply by contacting the other reps in your department (or the Steering Committee if you are in a department without reps) and asking to serve. Part-timers may choose to hold an election within their department. Reps should contact the P-fac office to make sure they are included on the representatives’ e-mail list.

Can P-fac help me see or review my personnel file?

Yes. The first step in seeing your personnel file is contacting the Human Resources office, which requires seven days’ notice to assemble your file. An HR person will be present when you examine your file, and you may also invite a P-fac representative to be present. While you can’t remove information from your file, you can make copies. You can also add information to your file (for example, a written disagreement with something that has been placed in your file). You’re entitled to see your file once per semester or whenever you have filed a grievance.

How can P-fac help me if I have a problem with my coordinator or department chair?

Please do call a department rep and/or the Steering Committee if you have a problem with an administrator, especially if you are worried that disciplinary action may result. Many problems can be solved through informal discussion, but it can be very helpful to have a P-fac rep present as a witness and potential mediator. Often, this also helps resolve difficulties more quickly by increasing accountability. It is also your legal right to have a P-fac representative present.

What is a grievance? If I believe I have a grievance, what should I do?

Not all problems are grievances. A grievance must violate some specific provision of the contract. “Violation” includes misinterpretation and misapplication (see Article IX of the contract for details). For example, a policy that changes working conditions could call for a grievance.

Because filing a grievance has step-by step procedures with deadlines, it is important to contact the P-fac Grievance Chair as soon as possible after a grievable event occurs. It’s better to be safe—if the problem isn’t a grievance, P-fac may still be able to help in informal ways, and if it is a grievance, it’s important to start the “clock” right away.

Individuals often file grievances, but a group of faculty, or P-fac as a whole, can also file grievances when multiple faculty are affected.

How does the contract negotiation process work?

Before a contract expires, the Negotiations Chair forms a negotiations committee to discuss the effectiveness of the current contract, problems that have arisen, and suggestions for change and improvement. The committee is informal. Formal negotiations take place when a team from P-fac (nominated by the negotiations committee and confirmed by the Steering Committee) meets with a team from the College to discuss the content and language of the new contract. (Each team usually has 3-5 members; an IEA advisor and sometimes other facilitators or advisors may also be present). This process usually takes several months. When the teams have agreed on final contract language, the P-fac membership must vote to accept it, as must the Board of Trustees.

How can I contribute my ideas about what we need in our new contract?

P-fac is conducting a survey on this website (LINK). You may also contact the Negotiations Chair, or, more informally, a negotiations committee member with your input.

Could P-fac go on strike?

While the current contract is in effect, no, because it contains a “no strike/no lockout” clause (Article XIII). However, the contract ends on August 31, 2010, and after that date it would be legal for P-fac to go on strike if the membership voted to do so.

Why and how did part-time faculty at Columbia form a union?

Why did P-fac decide to affiliate with IEA/NEA?

How many contracts have we had, and how have they changed?

In the mid 1990s, a group of adjunct professors from several departments asked the then-administration for a committee to discuss their concerns. The administration refused. The faculty group then formed P-fac, which was the first part-time faculty union in a private college in Illinois. After examining several possibilities, P-fac decided to affiliate with IEA/NEA because it allowed the most autonomy for the local union. P-fac is not run by “outside agitators” but by part-time Columbia faculty themselves.

In 1998, with 80% of part-timers voting in favor, P-fac won collective bargaining rights with Columbia College. At the time, payment per 3-hour class was only $1450. The first contract (1999-2002) established a higher pay scale which rewarded seniority, and each subsequent contract has improved this scale. (The second contract was 2002-2006; the third is 2006-2010.)

At one time, P-fac’s original goal of $3,000 per course was criticized as “unrealistic.” But by fall 2005 this had become the starting salary, and by the beginning of our third contract in 2006, even the lowest-paid bargaining unit member made $3150. By now (2009-10, the final year of our third contract) per-course pay ranges from $3756 to $4770, making Columbia adjuncts among the highest-paid in the Chicago area. Meanwhile, the College continues to pay first-semester faculty $1785.

Contracts have also entitled P-fac members to participate in college governance via the College Council and its committees, department meetings, search committees, etc. This gives part-time faculty a voice in many College policies, curriculum developments, and other issues (such as evaluation) that directly affect us and our students.

Each contract has also increased job security and benefits; admittedly, gains in these areas have been more modest, because the “flexibility” of at-will hiring and firing, and the economy of having employees without benefits, are key appeals of the contingency system to college administrations, at Columbia and elsewhere. The 21^st century College administration differs from that of 1998 in personnel and structure, but the key issues of contingency remain significant; P-fac members remain far from proportionate parity with fulltime faculty who make an average of $62,000 a year, plus significant health, pension, and professional development benefits.

Still, part-time faculty who have accumulated at least 51 credit hours are entitled to replacement classes under specified circumstances, and to remediation if there are problems with their teaching. Faculty at all levels are paid $100 when a class is cancelled. The current contract also includes funds from the Provost’s office for professional development grants. These are steps in the right direction.

What is Region 67 and how does it affect P-fac?

Region 67 is the new (as of May 2009) region which includes Chicago-area college IEA unions: Columbia’s P-fac and US of CC, Roosevelt University’s RAFO, City Colleges of Chicago’s CCLOC, and Triton College’s TCAFA. Until the IEA voted to form the new region, these unions were distributed among different regions dominated by K-12 members. For example, although Columbia and Roosevelt are literally around the corner from each other, P-fac’s regional headquarters were in Lombard while Roosevelt’s were in Skokie.

The new Chicago higher education region will allow participating unions to work together for improvements throughout the region. Region 67 also will have its own funds and staff to support cooperative as well as individual union activities in Chicago.

Officers for 2009 of Region 67 are President Frank Brooks (Roosevelt University’s RAFO), Vice President Julian Brown (P-fac), and Minority Representative Mike Bright (who is also president of US of CC, the Columbia staff union). Other positions will be filled during fall semester 2009-10.

Part-time Faculty Association at Columbia College Chicago

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