GUEST OPINION
Pasadena City College (Photo – pasadena.edu).
Now is the time to implement a meaningful Health Care Plan for all Part Time Faculty.
By Roger Marheine
In a time of crisis, vulnerabilities and inequalities intensify. COVID-19 has exposed our woefully under prepared national health care system. The shortages of basic test kits, masks and respirators, and fundamental protections for our health care workers reveal a critical lack of national leadership.
Health care is a human right, a basic necessity that every single individual should be provided with. While our national leadership apparently does not grasp this fact, many state officials and local officials have stepped into the void and taken decisive action.
Our own college leadership has been proactive in addressing student food security, student access to computers, expanded counseling and support services and much more. Student equity remains a top priority, as it should be.
Communication has been excellent. President Endrijonas and her staff have been diligent in updating us during this challenging moment. Our college has taken almost all necessary and appropriate steps.
However, one essential step remains to be taken.
It is now a critical necessity that you as PCC leaders immediately institute a medical benefit for all Part Time Faculty. The details could easily be worked out in short order.
Desperate times do indeed call for extraordinary measures. However, desperate times also provide us with opportunities to correct historical errors. Desperate times require enlightened leadership, and as Board members, it is your time to address health care as an immediate and pressing need for Part Time Faculty. Establishing a meaningful plan would be a profoundly equitable action, but also a socially responsible decision during this pandemic.
I am struck that when I speak with friends and associates in the community, they are invariably shocked to learn that PCC’s Part Time Faculty have no health care whatsoever. None? “Really?” Come the incredulous replies. All other major community colleges offer some form of health care benefit for Part Time Faculty. Why hasn’t PCC also done so?
As a long- time PCC teacher, I have been dismayed that previous Board members have casually rejected Part Time health care. Some were smugly dismissive, while others threw up their hands claiming that it costs too much. The truth of the matter is we cannot afford to delay any longer. The costs of delay are in fact, too high.
We have approximately 800 Part Time Faculty who teach 40% of our class offerings. Historically, they have been denied the benefit of college-provided health care. They are the greatest number with the greatest need. I urge you, the Board of Trustees, to move immediately and implement a meaningful plan to address the critical health care needs of our Part Time Faculty. Equity demands it.
Roger Marheine is a Professor of English at Pasadena City College.
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