May 1, 2020

Dear Faculty Colleagues,

First and foremost, Happy May Day! Thank you all for your hard work and perseverance in these most difficult times. I’m writing to offer you an update on activities CFA-LA continues to pursue to protect the health, well-being, and working conditions of faculty, students, and staff.

The CFA-LA EBoard and Cal State LA’s Provost and AVP for Faculty Affairs are having weekly Labor/Management meetings to address issues of concern from the faculty. We initially met with them several times in late March to establish agreements about necessary RTP policy adjustments due to disruptions caused by COVID-19. Our goals for the ongoing Labor/Management meetings are to ensure that the administration’s plans continue to be sufficient to protect faculty health and safety, while also respecting our contractual rights.

Order of Assignment: One of the first topics we discussed was the importance of clarifying Order of Assignment of Lecturer faculty. Under Article 12.29 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement, any new or additional work that is assigned to Lecturers must first be offered to current Lecturers. After all Lecturer entitlements have been met, additional work should be offered to current part-time Lecturers, up to and including a 1.0 time base. During our meeting with administration, we urged Academic Affairs to send a clear message to all deans, department chairs, and Lecturer faculty about this process and we’re happy to announce that Nancy McQueen sent these emails on Monday, April 27.

At this time, we also encourage all Lecturers to consult the course catalog and identify all the courses which you are qualified to teach. Send that list of courses to your chair informing them of what you are able to teach in the Fall semester. The assignment of teaching is contingent on a chair being informed about which courses Lecturers are qualified to teach.

Fall Instructional Modalities: In our meetings, we’ve asserted that the CSU should provide clear direction and decision-making on Fall 2020 teaching modalities as soon as possible. We also let the administration know that CFA is closely monitoring process and outcomes to protect safety, work availability, workload, and other faculty rights issues as necessary. We were made aware that the Chancellor’s Office (CO) is currently considering three different instructional modalities for Fall 2020: 1) all classes and instructional activities virtual; 2) a mix of virtual and face-to-face classes and instructional activities (hybrid); and 3) starting the academic year virtually, but then returning to face-to-face instruction in the middle of the semester. It is unclear whether all CSU campuses will be expected to adopt the same instructional modality or if the choice will be left to each campus’s discretion.

Transparent Use of CARES Act Stimulus Money: Another topic we discussed is what Cal State LA administrators plan to do with the $37 million stimulus money our campus is set to receive as part of the CARES Act. This money is designed to help the campus mitigate negative impacts of COVID-19. Half of this money is earmarked for emergency student needs, and President Covino announced the disbursement of those grants starting on April 30. We also suggested administration allocate some form of emergency grants to undocumented students. The remaining $18.5 million can be spent at the discretion of our campus administration. We believe much of this discretionary portion should go directly to ensuring no jobs are lost, no faculty or staff lose their health care, and that any use of this money be made transparent.

Other Issues CFA Is Addressing: CFA Statewide continues to meet with the Labor Management Team in the Chancellor’s Office regularly to determine a way forward for us all, and both Statewide and the CFA-LA Chapter remain committed to the following, always using the best information available to inform how to proceed:

• Protecting the health and safety of faculty, students, staff, and university communities, using CBA Article 37 (learn more at https://www.calfac.org/headline/faculty-rights-tip-safety);
• Protecting lecturer work, using CBA Article 12 (especially Article 12.29, learn more at https://www.calfac.org/item/understanding-lecturer-rights);
• Protecting work availability by ensuring administrators cut class sizes, not instructors;
• Ensuring that faculty have what they need to teach (Virtual Offices) and that students have what they need to learn as new directives regarding instructional modalities emerge;
• Defending our health insurance benefits during a global pandemic;
• Consistently reminding the CSU to listen to a diversity of people on the front lines, including CFA faculty and students. The CSU must listen to, and involve us in decision-making.

Due to the unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic crisis, we realize that matters are in constant flux. We won’t know the full extent of the damage to the California state budget and CSU’s response until the Governor’s May Revised Budget in mid-May. Moreover, we are still waiting for updates about student enrollment numbers here at Cal State LA. While we don’t want to overreact to unknown situations, it’s important to remain organized in preparation for these and other potential problems. CFA-LA will be calling a Virtual Faculty Town Hall in mid-May (soon after the Governor’s May Revise), in order to strategize our collective response.

Mutual Aid Network: Even as we’re in communication with Cal State LA administrators to ensure that faculty have a voice in university decisions, we also recognize the importance of faculty-to-faculty and faculty-to-student mutual aid networks. Mutual aid is the practice of the reciprocal and voluntary exchange of resources, services, and skills among community members. We are establishing such a program for our faculty members, which is in line with the Sustaining Ourselves and Students (S.O.S.) Campaign that we initiated last fall. COVID-19 and the subsequent economic crisis has forced us to temporarily transition our campaign to one of direct support for faculty. We will be working with department representatives to help coordinate the mutual aid networks. If your department does not have a representative and you are interested in helping please contact me at aratcliff@calfac.org.

Parking Refunds: If you purchased a semester permit, you will need to submit the request for the refund by clicking on the following link:

http://www.calstatela.edu/parking/citation-and-parking-permit-refund-request.

To stop payroll deduction of parking charges, email Ericka.Carter2@calstatela.edu.  Please include your name as it appears in payroll, EIN, bargaining unit (3), and your department in the email.

Join CFA: Now more than ever, faculty need a strong union to protect their rights during the pandemic. If you are not yet a CFA member, please HELP US HELP EACH OTHER BY JOINING THE UNION! https://www.calfac.org/join-cfa

In conclusion, if the issues I’ve listed are important to you, raise them with your colleagues, chairs, and deans. Let us know if we should add something to our list. Your communication with us is confidential and will not be shared with university administrators. If you don’t have answers to questions from students or colleagues about safety, faculty rights or other workplace issues, direct them to the www.calfac.org/pod/covid-19-and-cfa or send an email to me at aratcliff@calfac.org, our Lecturer Representative Leda Ramos at lramos@calfac.org, or our faculty rights chair Molly Talcott at mtalcott@calfac.org,

In Solidarity,

Anthony Ratcliff, PhD

Chapter President

California Faculty Association

Cal State LA Chapter