Possible Unemployment Benefits
May 4, 2012

Dear Colleagues,

This is important information regarding unemployment benefits published in a previous CFT newsletter:

If you do not have a summer or fall teaching assignment, or another job, you may be entitled to unemployment benefits.

If you are teaching summer school, you may qualify for unemployment benefits in the periods before or after summer session.  The results from a 1989 CFT legal challenge, the landmark decision Cervisi v. California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. It held that temporary faculty (i.e., part-time) are eligible for unemployment benefits between terms because they do not have "reasonable assurance of reemployment" since future assignments are contingent upon enrollment, funding, or bumping by a full-time faculty member.

If you have work of some kind between terms, or your workload is reduced at any time, you may be eligible for partial unemployment if your salary is less than what you would receive from unemployment.

To apply for unemployment, go to www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment.  If EDD denies your claim, contact your AFT local union to file a timely appeal. 

If you get health benefits from the district and you lose your assignment, you are now entitled to nine months continued coverage under President Obama's stimulus package, the district must pay 65 percent of that amount.  Previously, you had to pay the premiums yourself.

When you apply they will ask for your local number.  We are AFT local 4909.

Respectfully,

Marilyne Cleeves
CCFT Communications Chair

Cuesta Unemployment Resource

Some of you may not know that the EDD has a representative who works every Tuesday at the Estrella One-Stop Center on North Campus. There are also three phone lines that link directly with the EDD at the center, and many people have reported to have had greater success reaching the EDD on these lines than from phones at home. You just pick up a line, enter a 3-digit code and depending on which auto answer you receive, wait for a rep or hang up and redial. Coaching is available on which auto answer to ignore and which to wait through.

Barbara G. Hoffman
TEAM Cuesta Instructor-Job Search
North Campus, One-Stop Center
Message phone: 591-6272