WEA members stand united for higher education faculty in Olympia
WEA’s K-12 members have made big compensation gains in the last couple of years, thanks to hard bargaining and increases in state funding.
And while some of them also have negotiated substantial pay raises, our community and technical college members are still fighting for competitive, professional pay. Non-tenured adjunct faculty are particularly underpaid.
“Like our students, adjunct faculty dream of a bright future,” said Tobi Rosenberg, who teaches at Bellevue College. “The lack of job security and pay inequities are making a career in higher education less and less viable.”
Rosenberg was one of three higher education WEA members who testified in Olympia in support of legislation that would increase state funding for faculty salaries.
House Bill 1300 would help:
- Convert part-time faculty positions to full-time faculty positions, consistent with each college’s operating budget and as defined in collective bargaining agreements.
- Commit to achieving pay equity in faculty compensation by reducing the gap between compensation for part-time faculty and full-time faculty within a college.
“So-called ‘part-time’ faculty have come to comprise a large percentage of the state’s community and technical college faculty,” Rosenberg said.
“It is important to understand that ‘part-time,’ does not mean working less than full-time; it has nothing to do with hours. In our world, ‘part-time’ is a euphemism for those who do not have tenure, are not tenure-track, and who, because of the lack of full-time positions, have little hope of ever having the security of full-time employment.”
