Negotiations Update 20 October 2026
Negotiations are a marathon not a sprint, and your PFF Negotiations team continues to push forward and advocate for faculty at every turn.
Every proposal at the bargaining table represents real working conditions, compensation, and protections for faculty. Negotiations aren't just about the people sitting across from the District. They're about the collective strength of the faculty we represent. Your experiences, questions, and participation help shape our priorities and strengthen our position. The Negotiations Team may be at the table, but the power behind every proposal comes from YOU.
While we wait for the District to move some of our bigger proposals forward, we’ve been busy with significant changes, protections, and thoughtful counters. Here’s the latest!
📌 MOU AB 65 Implementation - District Counterproposal #1
Over the summer, the state passed AB 65, giving community colleges a discretionary COLA to provide 14 weeks of paid pregnancy disability leave (PDL) for all eligible employees. The new paid PDL must be implemented by January 1st, but the new COLA was already applied to our budget. Our MOU proposes that the program be implemented immediately instead of waiting until January. We also added language that any additional funds from this discretionary COLA be applied retroactively as a percent increase to all employee salaries instead of being used to pad our reserve fund.
In their counter, the District cleaned up some language and agreed to implement it for the Fall semester (even hinting at being open to implement retro to July 1). They did not agree to a retroactive increase using the additional funds. PFF continues to argue that the additional funds from the discretionary COLA should go to employees and will be prepared to counter at our next session.
📌 MOU Public Safety/EME Academies - District Initial Proposal
PFF is working to ensure employees performing faculty-level instructional work receive appropriate classification, compensation, and contractual protections. We are currently at the end of our temporary MOU for the employees formerly known as Skills Instructors in the Public Safety and EME Academies. Please see the update from 9-4-26 for more context. In the past, these Skills Instructors were hired as short-term hourly to support the instructor of record. Due to changes in PERS as well as some frustration with this system, we are exploring ways to include the Skills Instructors in our contract as faculty members. Many are hired as both part-time faculty and skills instructors resulting in inconsistent pay depending on the shift they are scheduled, and argue that there is a huge overlap in job duties.
The District proposed restructuring these academies to allow for more labs linked to classes with more part-time faculty hired to teach the labs instead of using Skills Instructors to assess those skills. This restructure will allow for those assessing the skills to be properly compensated, but there will still be a need for some support. The District presented this pilot MOU for that additional category of faculty to support this new system. We will be discussing with those impacted before countering. In the meantime, we extended our temporary MOU to allow for continued negotiations.
✅ MOU DRC Chair Extension Spring 2027 - District Counterproposal #1
We began a pilot DRC chair position in the Spring of 2024 and continue to advocate for this position to be codified in the contract. In the meantime, we proposed yet another extension to ensure continuity for the Spring 2027 semester.
📌 Article 20 - PFF Initial Proposal
Last year in our reopeners, we gave Article 20 quite an overhaul. This round, there were a few cleanup items and suggestions for our initial proposal. Here are the highlights of our proposal:
PFF is advocating for language to protect designated space for EDGE (H-114) and Senate (MD-316) similar to the language we have that secures the part-time faculty offices in the NS building.
PFF included language to encourage timely implementation of PN & Base Load for part-time faculty once they are added to the PN list.
PFF added language referencing Ed Code §87482.8 to encourage providing part-time faculty with assignment information at least six weeks in advance whenever possible.
We added a section for part-time retiree protections to ensure part-time retirees maintain PN and Base Load upon retirement.
PFF defined a “person” to be a “biological human” in 20.17.
📌 28-29 Academic Calendar
Please see the separate Negotiations Update to learn all about the Calendar updates.
Discussion
CCCCO Memo on PT Vision & Dental - Good news! The District notified us of a memo from the Chancellor’s Office regarding a recent update to the Part-Time Faculty Health Insurance Program. For districts that negotiate it, eligible part-time faculty will have access to the same vision and dental coverage as their full-time colleagues, just as they currently do for healthcare coverage. We are well aware of the memo. The change to the program was made possible by CFT, our state affiliate, which pushed for the change. We will, of course, be following up!
Initial Step Placement - Logically, PFF would assume that if a full-time faculty member meets minimum qualifications, they would be placed at Step 1. For every year of experience, they would move up a step. Should someone meet min quals and have 5 years of experience, we would assume they would be placed at step 6. However, in practice, faculty have been placed at step 5. PFF is advocating for steps to be recalculated to appropriately compensate faculty for their years of experience.
Chair Stipend Error Updates - The District has some data to review and share. As soon as we get details on any of the stipends, we will share out with those impacted.
Library Tech - There continue to be concerns with overlapping job duties in the Library. The District and PFF will meet to review the positions to ensure the job duties are delineated appropriately.
Office Hours Receipt Page - PFF continues to advocate for ways for part-time faculty to track their submission of office hours via a receipt upon submission. IS is working on a new system to streamline the process, but in the meantime they will provide tracking documents to PFF to help part-time faculty until the new system is set up.
Sub Messaging - There is new messaging around cancelled classes, minimum hours, and sub requests. PFF wants to ensure that faculty are not penalized for taking leave. Any absence should not be an obligation to perform additional, uncompensated work.
Remaining Articles - The parties reviewed the status of outstanding proposals and counterproposals on our proposal tracker. the parties reviewed the remaining articles on our proposal tracker:
🎉 7 Articles Tentatively Agreed and waiting for Ratification
25 Articles, Counters, and MOUs Pending | |||
District Pending Proposals | District Pending Counters | PFF Pending Proposals | PFF Pending Counters |
8 initial proposals | 10 counter-proposals | 4 initial proposals | 3 counter-proposals |
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Next meetings:
Tuesday, October 27th
Friday, November 6th
Signing off—but still here for every comma, clause, and cause.
Your PFF Negotiations Team