All part-time lecturers on contingent appointments and all lecturers on 1-year full-time appointments in a single department are eligible for Unemployment Insurance (IU) benefits during all semester/quarter breaks. The best day to apply for UI benefits is the day after the last official day of your most recent academic term. If this end date is not on your most recent appointment letter, then refer to the academic calendar for your campus. Even if you have filed your grades before this date, it is important to know that we are term rather than hourly employees, and our academic term wages are earned until the last official day of that term. The flip side of this is that even if you haven’t finished grading by the official end date of the term, you can nonetheless file for UI benefits as your employment has legally ended and you are no longer earning wages.

Information on eligibility and how to file an application for Unemployment Insurance (UI) can be found directly at: https://edd.ca.gov:443/unemployment/

The CSU does not make any decisions as to eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits; these decisions are made by the EDD (Employment Development Department of California).

I.  Additional Unemployment Information for Temporary Faculty Employees: 

To qualify for unemployment insurance, a temporary faculty employee must be totally or partially unemployed and must not have “reasonable assurance” of returning to work with an educational institution following the period without employment.

The California Unemployment Code – Section 1253.3 (g) defines “reasonable assurance” as follows:

For purposes of this section, “reasonable assurance” includes, but is not limited to, an offer of employment or assignment made by the educational institution, provided that the offer or assignment is not contingent on enrollment, funding, or program changes. An individual who has been notified that he or she will be replaced and does not have an offer of employment or assignment to perform services for an educational institution is not considered to have reasonable assurance.

2. According to Section 1252 of the California Unemployment Code:

  • An individual is considered “unemployed” during any week in which “he or she performs no service and with respect to which no wages are payable to him or her.”  The EDD defines a week as beginning on Sunday and ending on Saturday.
  • For temporary faculty employees, the eligibility period is determined by the academic calendar. Because temporary faculty are paid for the entire academic term, they may be eligible for UI benefits starting the first day after the academic term ends. If the academic term has not ended, wages are still being collected for services rendered, and therefore the employee would not be eligible for unemployment benefits. Likewise, eligibility for UI benefits ends with the first academic work day of the academic term, since temporary faculty are paid from the beginning of the academic term, even if their assigned class does not meet that day

Additional Resources:

Sample EDD Letter For Appealing Denials of Benefits

Important Articles from CFA Collective Bargaining Agreement that Lecturers Can Use in Cases of Appeals

CSU Technical Letter on Unemployment Benefits for Academic Employees

Legal Aid Unemployment Basics, Including Applying: Lost Your Job? Your Rights and Benefits

Appeal Unemployment Denials: How To Appeal an Administrative Law Judge’s Decision to the CUIAB Board

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