To:                        Full Time Faculty
From:                    Dale Craig – President United Faculty
Date:                     September 1, 2011
Subject:                 40 Hours

In the last several semesters I have witnessed a disquieting trend among some managers in our District, which is to treat the full time Faculty they manage as hourly employees rather than as academic professionals. This manifests itself in edicts about scheduling, attendance at meetings, and other such “rules”. These edicts are never discussed with the Faculty before being imposed and are rarely allowed to be questioned in meetings. The result of treating Faculty as nothing more than fast-food workers who punch a time card before work and have their bathroom breaks monitored is that Faculty may start acting like hourly workers. If that happens, I suspect the Dean or manager may come to regret imposing such “rules”.

One way some Deans and managers treat Faculty like hourly workers is by ignoring their contractual participation in the scheduling of classes. Although the UF contract clearly outlines the areas and process of collaboration between the Faculty and their immediate management supervisor over scheduling, these rights are ignored outright by some managers. Instead, restrictive scheduling guidelines are presented as “the rule” and staff assignment sheets rejected if they don’t meet this guideline. In most such cases the “rule” is a mandated 4 day a week teaching schedule.

Other ways that Deans treat Faculty like hourly workers is by closely monitoring their attendance at meetings, docking their pay if they are 15 minutes late to a division meeting, and just generally acting towards Faculty as if quantity (how many days they can be under observation) is more important than quality (what kind of job are they doing in the classroom and for the division).

Why are Faculty in some divisions being treated as hourly workers rather than academic professionals?  Partly, this is due to the poor management skills of their supervisors. But it is also beneficial to various Administrators to sometimes treat Faculty as hourly employees (we must be monitored and controlled) and other times as professionals, particularly when college or district work must be done (professionals work until the task is complete no matter how long it takes).

But what if, after being continually treated as hourly employees, Faculty start acting like an hourly employee? What if, after 15 hours teaching, 15 hours preparation time, and 5 hours of office time, they only work on “other professional matters” no more than 5 hours a week? What if, in the middle of a program review or SLO meeting a Faculty member announces that he or she “has put in my 5” and walks out? What if most Faculty do this? I suspect that a lot of critical work won’t get done, such as program review, curriculum, SLOs, and all the things being required for accreditation.

For those Faculty members being treated as hourly employees, you can do three things:

• In a division meeting, ask your Dean to explain their “rules” and their reasons for imposing them on Faculty.
• Document how many hours you work on college/district tasks and committees. At the end of 5 hours just stop (preferable in the middle of a meeting).
• Talk to those Faculty that tend to put in hundreds of hours working on committees and projects. Explain to them that continuing to work past 40 hours a week results in some managers imposing their “rules” on their fellow Faculty members. If allowed to continue, harsher “rules” may be in the works.

Faculty are professionals and should be treated as such and, until this happens, we all should consider working our contractually obligated 40 hours a week and no more.