July 24, 2020

Dear Colleagues,

This summer, CFA has met with Jose Gomez and Nancy McQueen to discuss the challenges that the pandemic presents to us as workers, and we have been especially concerned with how care work at home (of children, parents, ill family members) compounds our already onerous workloads. As a racial and social justice union, we are mindful of how this pandemic impacts gender equity, given that women and femmes do the majority of caring labor at home. With the closure of our campus’s Anna Bing child care center and LAUSD’s move to remote (at-home) learning, our workload equity concerns have only deepened.

If you are juggling increased care work at home induced by the pandemic, you are eligible to apply for several programs that will allow you to take a full temporary paid administrative leave or to reduce your timebase without reducing your pay. All Unit 3 (CFA’s bargaining unit) faculty are eligible – full-time, part-time, Lecturers, tenure-line, counselors, coaches, and librarians alike.

If you are a Lecturer, and you take a Temporary Paid Administrative Leave (CPAL) this academic year, your entitlement for next year will not be impacted (see point #2 here).

1. As your immediate and first step, complete the human resources management (HRM) forms requesting paid leave benefits under the CPAL and EFMLEA. These benefit programs may be combined by employees to cover the full semester. The CPAL form is here and the EFMLEA form is here.
2. Email these completed form(s) to your dean with a cover letter explaining why you require the leave and which courses to which you wish to apply your leave (those you and your chair have agreed you won’t teach). If you are the primary caretaker of children whose childcare centers and/or schools are closed due to COVID-19, this is your rationale (for both the forms and your letter to the dean). CC your chair or supervisor, and let them know of your plans to reduce your timebase ASAP. While there is no immediate deadline for these programs, do inform your dean and chair as soon as you decide to apply, so that they can appoint replacement faculty for your course(s). You must also get a signature from Deborah Williams in HRM: (dwillia@cslanet.calstatela.edu), though this will happen after the dean has signed off on your leave request form.
3. Please note: The HRM form requires faculty to specify the number of hours of leave they are requesting. For calculation purposes, each 3-unit course = 8 hours per week. Faculty should calculate 16 weeks of leave (including finals week). Because the CPAL program expires in December 2020, faculty should start with this program and expend all of those hours (256 in total, equivalent to two 3-unit courses off), and then use EFMLEA benefits to cover the rest of the Fall semester, if needed.

A few more things to consider:

1. If your dean approves you for a CPAL (and/or EFMLEA), your pay will remain the same at 100%. However, you will not receive credit toward retirement for the courses (or hours) you are on leave from teaching/working. For example, if you reduce your timebase by .2, you’ll receive 80% of credit toward retirement for Fall; if you reduce it by .4, you’ll receive 60% of credit toward retirement in Fall 2020. And so on.
2. While you may apply for a partial or full reduction in timebase under these programs, remember that if you fall below 6 units of work (in teaching or other duties), you will lose your benefits eligibility.
3. It bears repeating: all faculty are eligible for CPAL and EFMLEA.
4. It bears repeating: Lecturers who apply for CPAL and/or EFMLEA will not lose entitlement in AY ’21-22, pursuant to our MOU between CFA and the CSU.
5. If you have additional questions about the HRM forms, we recommend that you contact Deborah Williams (dwillia@cslanet.calstatela.edu).

Finally, if you are not facing increased care work or illness, but you wish to take a voluntary reduction in workload, you can do so pursuant to item #1 of our MOU (between CFA and the CSU), which you can review here. This kind of partial leave will, however, reduce your pay accordingly, and the deadline to apply for it is August 1, 2020. This request for leave is only available to tenure-line and full-time Lecturers with three-year contracts and is subject to the appropriate administrator’s discretion, whereas the other programs (CPAL, EFMLEA, etc.) are benefits to which faculty are entitled (and which, if denied, are grievable).

Thank you for reaching out to your CFA leaders with your concerns, with special thanks to Beth Baker and Alejandra Marchevsky, co-chairs of our Women’s and Gender Nonbinary Caucus, for centering gender justice in our union advocacy. it has been difficult to iron out the details of each of these options for faculty, and we are grateful for our engaged members’ advocacy on this.

CFA continues to work on our collective behalf, making good trouble as needed, as we know that an injury to one is an injury to all!

As always, you can direct general questions to President Anthony Ratcliff (aratcliff@calfac.org), Lecturer representation questions to Lecturer Representative, Leda Ramos (lramos@calfac.org), and faculty rights questions to Faculty Rights Chair, Molly Talcott (mtalcott@calfac.org). We are working throughout the summer, as is our CFA staff organizer, Jackie Teepen (jteepen@calfac.org).

In Solidarity,

Anthony Ratcliff,

CFA-LA President, for the Executive Board