The North Orange County Community College District Adjunct Faculty members who meet a certain criteria, can receive 100% of the health care benefits that full-time instructors get. Friday, Oct. 13, is the deadline to apply for it, and those who miss this hard deadline will have to wait for the next Fall semester to apply.
After a denied proposal on Mar. 14 at a Board of Trustees meeting, Adjunct Faculty United Local 61062 and NOCCCD went back to the drawing board before they reached an agreement on May 12. The specific health care benefits that were awarded to part-time instructors apply if they are teaching 40% or more of the minimum required units that full- time instructors must teach to qualify. This translates to adjunct faculty needing to teach six units or about two classes per semester to receive the benefits.
“There are over a dozen high-quality plans to choose from, including family coverage, that comes at little to no cost to members,” said Executive Director of Adjunct Faculty United Dashiel Johnson.
The agreement states that those teaching below six units may still qualify for a 100% healthcare reimbursement, if they work in more than one district. The agreement still maintains the current $2,200 annual premium reimbursement to members working 33% of the minimum load.
With the new agreement, Adjunct Faculty members can apply to switch their current district health-care plan, or to receive one for the first time, by the deadline on Friday, Oct. 13. After the deadline, only newly hired part-time faculty can still apply to this benefit until the deal is over.
Since the Board of Trustees approval of the agreement in May, It will remain until July 31, 2024.
In September 2022, the California State Legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom increased the reimbursement budget for community college districts who offer health care benefits to part-time instructors to $200 million. With this, Adjunct Faculty United first applied for a new deal on Feb. 2.
However, the District first denied the deal at their meeting in March, suggesting a new deal of partial coverage to AdjFac. This deal would have increased their $2,200 reimbursement to $8,057 according to NOCCCD Board of Trustees Chancellor Byron Breland.
Adjunct Faculty United representatives denied this counteroffer, and pushed for the deal they had proposed to be approved. They organized two rallies outside of the NOCCCD Anaheim Campus building on March 14, and on April 11, prior to those Board of Trustees meetings.
After negotiations between Breland and AdjFac United President Seija Rohkea, the new deal was finally set in May, and was strongly approved by the union’s members.
“I never thought I’d live to see the day we’d get healthcare,” said Adjunct Faculty United former president Tonya Cobb in a statement released by AdjFac in May. “This historic victory fundamentally fixes a major inequity for part-timers.”
Rohkea wrote in the Adjunct Faculty United statement that they will still fight for a new contract to be approved by the district before the current deal finalizes next summer.
