The current crisis has brought into focus the extreme precarity that contingent faculty live with year in and year out. UC-AFT (the union that represents UC lecturers) is circulating a pledge that asks ladder rank faculty at the University of California to demonstrate solidarity in a very concrete way, and CUCFA is endorsing this pledge.
We are asking individual faculty members to commit to and advocate for the following:
* Rehire currently employed or previously employed lecturers to teach courses that they are qualified for before hiring anyone new. (This includes retaining an existing lecturer before hiring a recent grad.)
* Advocate for multi-year appointments within our departments for our pre-continuing lecturer colleagues. (Currently allowed in our contract)
* Apply now for exemptions to the hiring freeze so that lecturers can receive timely reappointments and thoroughly prepare to teach in fall 2020. (Not all campuses have hiring freezes, but as far as we can tell, all campuses are planning on making very last minute lecturer appointments.)
Please read and sign the pledge here:
I support these proposals.
As a parent of two children, I know what’s at stake for me and the other lecturers. We should look for ethical solutions to our budget shortage–solutions that distribute the burden of cuts equitably throughout the university system, rather than single out the vulnerable workers at the bottom to ensure the salaries of those at the top.
UC & the UC system is made of the people who serve and attend. Lecturers are essential to our community that serves and allow us to offer all the courses we need to serve our attending student body. They are essential. I support the proposal and their necessary protection.
Lecturers are a vital and vibrant part of our pedagogy and absolutely necessary to be able to offer our students the courses and quality of education they are promised when we accept them into the university. Lecturer positions MUST be sustanied and secured.