The Trouble with Tenure

Our current union leaders tout the new Transfer language they have agreed to which involves tenure. The tenure subsection reads, in part:

A tenured employee who accepts a transfer without tenure [emphasis added] may apply for tenure when he/she will have, by September 1 of the year such appointment is to be effective, completed three (3) years of full-time employment in the same job function at the receiving college.

This language only serves to reinforce the primary weakness of tenure for 4C’s members. As we see on page 19 of our current contract:

Tenure is granted by the President and relates only to the college and not the System.

Our AFT colleagues have systemwide tenure, and this serves as the foundation of their job security language—more on this in a later blog post.

Tenure for 4C’s members offers no protection against layoffs; it only provides us with one extra month of notice in the case of layoffs.

Strong unions have strong tenure contract provisions.

Why isn’t the 4C’s a strong union?

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