Lecturer Bargaining Update: Our Workload proposals Argue for Treating Lecturers with Dignity and Respect

Currently, LEO is negotiating a few contract proposals related to ‘Workload’ that would make workload expectation within units available to all lecs. Clear expectations will help lecturers to have more agency over the work they are assigned to do or that they take on at some point. One goal of these proposals is to help create a ‘toolkit’ of sorts, within our contract, to address overwork and position classification problems as they are recognized by lecturers.

Below, you can see some of our proposal language, subject to change via negotiations, and which will not be finalized until agreed to at the table. But in order to get agreement at the table, we need members to make arguments for why these proposed changes and revisions are important to the workload lives of lecturers across campuses. 

See the current LEO contract here. These proposals hope to build on that. The bold sections are key points of our suggested revisions.

ARTICLE XXVIII: WORKLOAD 

Section B.

Each Academic unit shall publish current workload standards for full-time equivalent employment for each Lecturer title employed by that unit no later than July 1, 2021. If unit-level workload standards do not yet exist, they will be created in Special Conference with the Union, by no later than January 1, 2022.  Workload standards shall include descriptions and percentage of effort for all duties Employees are expected to perform including teaching and its related duties, and administrative or service duties. In no case shall Employee workload increase as a result of the actions in this section.

*This will help units and lecturers to be clear about the work that is to be performed. Some units already have this clarity. For those that don’t, the article states that units will work with LEO reps to create clear descriptions and percentage of workload effort.

Section C.

The academic unit may continue and/or establish course credit equivalencies as appropriate and shall define and publish their course credit equivalencies. Academic units that currently have course credit equivalencies will publish them no later than July 1, 2021.  Academic units that establish course credit equivalencies will publish them by July 1 for the following academic year. Such course credit equivalencies include but are not limited to the estimation of percent effort for specific courses and the calculation of course credit equivalencies (or other calculation) for other assigned duties. Except as provided in Section D. below, such course credit equivalencies shall be applied consistently to all Employees in the academic unit. 

*A course equivalency is work done instead of teaching a class, and should be comparable in terms of hours/effort.

Section E.

In the event the Employer proposes to make substantive changes to the current workload standard for an academic unit, the Employer will provide notice of the intent to the Union to make the changes by no later than March 1 for the following academic year  and establish and publish the revised workload standard by no later than July 1 for the following academic year. If the revised workload standards deviate significantly from previous standards or from the standards of comparable academic units, the Union may request impact negotiations to address the issue.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING #7  

Article XXVII, B. 7, Posting, Hiring, and Notification, states that appointment letters must include “A description of the appointment and general responsibilities.” If job duties for an Employee include “significant ongoing administrative or service duties within the academic unit, or as assigned by the academic unit, and/or requires a range of instructional expertise” (quoting XI.B.3.a and XI.B.4.a), those job duties are to be described with as much specificity as practicable in the appointment letter.     

If a Lecturer I or Lecturer II has been assigned significant and ongoing administrative and/or service duties and/or has performed duties requiring a range of instructional expertise for at least four (4) out of the last six (6) fall and winter semesters, the Employee may request a Special Conference with Academic HR or Campus HR to determine whether or not a re-classification of the position to Lecturer III or IV is appropriate. The Special Conference shall review the Employee's contributions to service, administration, and/or instruction in the academic unit. The Employee shall submit a written description of their service, administrative work, and/or instruction. The Employee shall receive written notification of the decision within thirty (30) days of the Special Conference.  

If the Union believes an academic unit is rotating administrative responsibilities among Lecturers I or II in order to avoid creating a Lecturer III position, the Union may call a special conference in order to address the issue. 

*Here we propose adding language that already exists in our contract, in article XI, to MOU7 for consistency, and to give lecturers a means to make an argument for reclassification from LI/II to LIII or LIV. In expanding this MOU from the current version in the contract now, we hope to give LI/IIs who are doing the work of III/IVs the opportunity to make a case to be moved up. Although the “range of instructional expertise” has been difficult to come to an agreement about in terms of who could utilize this MOU, the Workload committee believes that Lecs consistently performing service or administrative work, and/or teaching full time loads that include courses of various levels, content, and expertise should be allowed to request a special conference, for which they write up a “description of their service, administrative work, and/or instruction.” This process doesn’t guarantee reappointment but offers the opportunity to make a case for it.