Our Most Abused Members—Educational Assistants

As our campuses have grown in enrollment, we have seen more and more Educational Assistants—EA’s—hired. These part-time, non-teaching professionals carry more and more of the workload on our campuses, as management hires them rather than additional full-timers.

Working under annual contracts, often with no fringe benefits, and most times at rates of pay less than those their colleagues earn, our EA’s are the most exploited members of the 4C’s.

At Norwalk, management reduced our writing center tutors’ pay by shifting them from part-time lecturers to EA’s. Instead of working nine hours per week, they work eight hours per week. An 11% cut in hours resulted in a 22% cut in pay because of their change from part-time lecturers to EA’s

Those EA’s who are eventually hired as full-time employees see their working experience ignored when they are hired at salary step one.

When our colleges close on “snow days,” 4C’s EA’s are told they must make up their hours. AFT members are paid when our colleges close.

We believe it is wrong to exploit and abuse people this way.

We want to see career paths for our EA’s. We want to see them paid proportionally to our other members, so management will have less incentive to hire EA’s.

We want decent treatment, fairness and justice for all of our members.

NEXT: Making the 4C’s a Strong Union--Part I: Transparency