When I began teaching biology part-time at Laney three years ago, Laney appeared to afford equal respect to its part-time faculty, avoiding the creation of a “two-tier” system. 
Part-time faculty are part of the Academic Senate here; our votes count the same as full-timers; we can even serve as department chairs!
However, soon I discovered several disturbing inequities. Part-timers are paid less than full-timers to do the exact same work at each of the 25 salary steps. 
This means that even after you adjust a full-timer’s salary for office hours and school service, they are paid more for each hour of instructional work than we are (for example, at Step 10, Column E of the salary schedule, a part-timer is paid 91.8 percent of what a full-timer makes — $97.33 vs. $106.07 — for the exact same work). 
Secondly, part-timers are paid a maximum of one office hour per week, and then only if they teach at least six equated hours. 
These policies institutionalize inequity in our employment contract and create a culture in which part-timers feel less valued. 
The administration is short-sighted if they don’t realize how far correcting these inequities can go towards correcting many of the culture problems that they currently bemoan.
Although full-timers may still teach the majority of classes, part-timers make up a clear majority of faculty: 63.1% of current faculty are part-time. 
While we are a clear majority, we rarely exercise the power that we have in our numbers, mostly because we are too spread out and spread too thin to organize in any meaningful way. 
But the time has come for us to do something about our unfair working conditions. 
An op-ed like this is no good without a call to action: We are currently in contract negotiations with the administration. 
Contact your Laney PFT union reps Ann McMurdo (mmcmurdo(at)peralta.edu) or Helen Curry (helencurrypft(at)gmail.com) to provide your input.

Brad Balukjian is a professor of Biology at Laney College. E-mail him at bbalukjian(at)peralta.edu.