Council Adjunct Faculty Unit
Reaches Tentative Agreement

Contract Summary

July 2, 2007

After several months of negotiations, on June 28, 2007, the Council’s Adjunct Faculty bargaining unit negotiating team reached a tentative agreement with the State on a new four year Agreement. Subject to ratification by eligible members of the unit, the new Agreement provides for a $250 increase per credit hour on the base rate salary ending at $1,200 in year four. Starting in the fall 2007 semester, the first year provides for a $100 increase per credit hour from the current $950 to $1,050. Adjunct faculty who have taught 16 or more semesters at an institution will receive an increase from the additional $25 per credit hour to $50 per credit hour. Beginning in the fall 2007 semester this will increase the current $975 to $1,100.  See the chart at the bottom of the page for a complete breakdown of the salary increases over the life of the Agreement.

Additional monetary gains include an increase in the compensation rate for class cancellations from the current $100. If a course is reassigned to any other employee or is cancelled less than two weeks before commencement of the relevant semester, an adjunct faculty member will receive ½ of a credit hour for the course. In the first year of the Agreement this will amount to $525. If a class is cancelled or reassigned after the first class is taught, an adjunct faculty member will receive one credit hour payment. In the first year of the Agreement this will be $1,050. Employees who are summoned to jury duty or to appear as a witness before a judicial of a quasi-judicial proceeding to which they are not a party during regularly scheduled work hours, will not lose pay for their absence from the class room.

Several non-specific items that were in Side Letter I (Employee Rights) of the current agreement were clarified with specific contract language and moved to Article XI — Employee Rights. Significant among them were office space and access to services and equipment. The colleges/universities will identify useable spaces and/or common areas, where appropriate, in which adjunct faculty may meet with students or work on instructional activities and college/university matters. Additionally, the institutions will provide adjunct faculty with access to instructional materials and services that aid in their instruction at the same level as full time faculty teaching the same course. Lastly, other union rights matters were modified in order for the local union or Council to better represent the bargaining unit members.

Despite the State’s rejection of our proposal to have the State pay a percentage of the premium for adjunct faculty who pay to participate in the State’s managed care health benefit program – currently NJPLUS, they agreed to work with us on attempting to seek a clarification for the 10% additional charge members pay to participate in the program. If the 10% additional charge is not for adverse experience rating, we would like the additional charge to be lowered to the 3% COBRA rate. It should be noted that currently only 400 part-time employees out of thousands of eligible part-time State employees participate in the program.

After many long hours of back and forth, at the end the State presented its best final offer of higher percentage increases than the 13% other state employees’ unions have bargained. Adjunct faculty per credit hours will have increased 26% to 28% over the four years. This represents a 243% increase from the $350 per credit hour rate that existed at our campuses prior to our first agreement in 1999. If ratification fails, the current agreement and salaries($950) will remain in effect come September and the State may begin the process of imposing its last best offer — a process that could take months. If that happens, it is likely that salary increases will not be retroactive to the beginning of the fall 2007 semester.

Except where modified by the tentative agreements, the contract language in the current 2003-2007 agreement will remain. To view the Tentative Agreements that constitute this agreement go to: http://cnjscl.org./ratification 2007/Adjunct Faculty 07 TAs.pdf

The State’s economic climate that includes an extremely tight NJ State budget and a minimal increase in funding passed by the legislature for the State colleges/universities made this a very difficult negotiation in terms of economic improvements. The bargaining committee worked extremely hard in an attempt to achieve our goals. However, we recognize and are disappointed that we were unable to achieve agreement on many of our proposals but believe that this is the best that could be done in the current budget crunch.