The unique situation of California part-timers embraces the work lives of around 40,000 community college faculty. California and its higher ed systems (the community colleges, state universities and the University of California system) are so big that it often behaves as if it is its own country. Many California faculty take what happens in California as normal. But it not.
Every HELU local union needs someone who has the stamina and analytic disposition to figure out the social history, the legal context and the organizing strategy behind the situation in which they find themselves. Scott Douglas has done this for California community college adjuncts, known in California as “part-timers,” “part-time-temporaries” or “PTs.” The culprit is “the 60% law.” But what is that? What does it say? And what does it mean? And how are “say” and “mean” different? Douglas explains. – Editor
From Scott Douglas, Active California PTer (freeway flyer), member of the California Part-time Faculty Association Executive Committee and member of the Community College Association Board of Directors.