Nine representatives and supporters of the El Camino College Federation of Teachers spoke about expanding healthcare coverage to part-time/adjunct faculty during public comment at the Feb. 22 Board of Trustees meeting.

Mathematics instructor Lars Kjeseth asked the board to adopt the part-time community college faculty health insurance program.

“This is indeed a historic opportunity,” Kjeseth said. “This coordinated statewide program will work better for the entire state and El Camino if we opt into it.”

Kjeseth told the story of Ted Gibson, an adjunct math instructor at El Camino College, who fell into a diabetic coma in 2011 and died in 2012. Kjeseth described Gibson’s struggles to “cobble together” enough teaching assignments to pay for his health care.

“Of course, we cannot know if Ted would have survived had he had consistent access to quality healthcare,” said Kjeseth. “But we do know that access to consistent quality health care is a strong, if not the strongest predictor, of continued health for people with chronic conditions.”

In 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom allocated $200 million in the state budget for healthcare for part-time faculty on an ongoing basis. While some colleges and districts have already utilized the new funds, El Camino has not, leaving many faculty members wondering why.

Geoffery Johnson is an English and Humanities instructor at San Diego Mesa and Southwestern Colleges and is also president of the American Federation of Teachers’ Adjunct-Contingent Caucus.

Johnson began his comments by telling the board that he drove “against traffic on the 405” to El Camino on his own accord without monetary compensation to show his support to the Federation.

“You might ask, ‘well, why would you do that?’ and I would say it’s because I have a wife who has type-two diabetes and if I did not have the health care that I have through San Diego Mesa College my wife could have ended up like Ted,” Johnson said.

Johnson brought paperwork that he said was the “tentative agreement” for the seven community colleges that have already signed into the adjunct healthcare plan, including San Diego Mesa College.

Johnson offered to show the board how the San Diego Community College District and the Los Rios College District, the third and second largest districts in the state, respectively, made the plan work.

“You spend all this money here on buildings and maintenance,” Johnson said. “One of the things I might ask you to consider is what about faculty maintenance?”

After the meeting, Trustee President Kenneth Brown told The Union that he appreciates and encourages staff and faculty to voice their concerns during meetings as it inspires dialogue.

Brown said he had concerns with the proposed healthcare expansion.

“The fact of the matter is that it’s brand new, and people are still trying to figure out all the ins and outs of how the money works, how the reimbursement works,” Brown said. “The devils in the details, you know? Has that money actually been allocated? Or implemented? And do we know how it works?”

As the meeting closed, Trustees Nilo Michelin and Katherine Maschler gave brief statements in support of the speakers voicing their concerns.

Associated Students Organization president Jana Abulaban was one of the nine speakers during public comment to use her allotted time to voice her support for the Federation and encourages both the board and the district to sit down and negotiate in good faith.

President of the El Camino College Federation of Teachers, alumna and faculty coordinator Kelsey Iino said in this cycle the Federation tried to begin bargaining negotiations with the district as early as April 2022 to avoid a lapse in the contract.

The faculty contract negotiations help determine salaries, benefits, hours, and other important working conditions.

While Iino said she has confidence in college administrators, she still thinks negotiations are not moving as quickly or fairly as she and her colleagues would hope.

“I will tell you that negotiations with the new president, it is a new culture, and I’m hopeful that we’re moving but still it’s taken us eight months and it shouldn’t have,” Iino said.

Before any big decisions are made, Brown said that it is the board’s job to make sure that every decision is fair.

“Remember my job is to represent everybody,” Brown said. “I have to look at how [decisions] affect everything: the students, the classifieds, the faculty, the administrators and so that’s part of the job right, that’s the hard part.”

Members from the El Camino College community, including the Federation of Teachers, will be marching on campus on Tuesday, Feb. 28, at 1:15 p.m. to raise awareness about the ongoing issues of healthcare, class sizes and cost of living.