Faculty Rights Tip: Safety

Article 37 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement covers workplace safety for all Unit 3 faculty members — instructional faculty, counselors, librarians, and coaches.

It is the administration’s responsibility to ensure that faculty members are not required to work in unsafe conditions or perform tasks that endanger health or safety.

In this time of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, CFA continues to press the administration on its responsibility to establish and maintain safe conditions through its repopulation plans, both systemwide and on each unique campus. We remain unsatisfied with the CSU’s lack of planning for Fall 2021, and we will continue to relentlessly advocate for safe working conditions for all Unit 3 faculty members in the CSU. We noted in Headlines last week that faculty are being required to report to campus even as the student vaccine requirement deadline is a month away (September 30).

When faculty members believe that they are being required to work under unhealthy or unsafe conditions, they should notify “appropriate administrators,” i.e. college deans and campus provosts. The university must then investigate complained-of conditions as soon as possible and immediately communicate the results of their investigations. If necessary, the university also must explain the steps that will be taken to correct the conditions.

Faculty members also may request temporary reassignments when they believe in good faith that their current assignment presents a clear danger to their health and safety. The administration must respond to such requests and may not unreasonably deny them during the preliminary aspect of any investigation.

Please check out Article 37 for other important safety provisions.

If you feel unsafe teaching, coaching, counseling, or providing library services on campus, contact your CFA chapter’s faculty rights advocate immediately. Find your representative here.

• Browse the faculty contract here.
• See an archive of Faculty Rights Tips.
• If you have questions about a faculty rights tip or would like to suggest a tip, please write us with the subject line “Faculty Rights Tip.”