{"id":6977,"date":"2026-09-24T18:37:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pft1603.org\/?page_id=6977"},"modified":"2026-09-24T18:37:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:37:52","slug":"allyson-tang-candidate-statement-for-pft-executive-council-vice-president-position","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pft1603.org\/?page_id=6977","title":{"rendered":"Allyson Tang, candidate statement for PFT Executive Council, Vice President position\u00a0 \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Colleagues,<\/p>\n

My name is Allyson Weiyong Tang, and I am a part-time faculty at Laney College teaching Chinese language. I am running for Vice President because Peralta is about to make decisions that will shape our work for the next decade. Full-time faculty and part-time faculty need a leader in the room who lives with those decisions. I know what it means to plan a whole semester around a section that may not survive the first week of enrollment.<\/p>\n

Before Peralta, I spent 5 years as a steward and organizer with UAW 4811 at UC Berkeley, representing graduate student workers. As a steward, I sat beside members in meetings with supervisors, filed and followed grievances, and explained contract language to people who had never opened their contract. As an organizer, I held one-on-one conversations department by department, signed up new members, and helped turn private frustration into collective action. That work taught me that a union is only as strong as its least-connected members. At Peralta, those are often the colleagues who teach at night, split time between campuses, and have no office. They need us most, and we need them.<\/p>\n

I speak Mandarin, English, and Russian. Our colleges serve Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley, some of the most multilingual communities in the country. Many of our students, and many of our colleagues, grew up speaking a language other than English. I will use those skills to get union information to members in the languages they use. I will also use them to stand with students and families when we fight for their classes.<\/p>\n

What part-time faculty face right now<\/strong><\/p>\n

The challenges are concrete. A part-timer loses a section to low enrollment, often days before the term starts. With it goes the income they planned around and, sometimes, the load that keeps them eligible for benefits. Their preparation time is gone too, and nobody pays for it.<\/p>\n

The planned merger of Laney and Merritt into Oakland City College will fold departments on both campuses into one. That raises questions our contract never had to answer. When two departments become one, whose assignment list comes first? Which campus does a part-timer teach on, and who pays for the travel time between them? The district says it will follow existing agreements. But those agreements were written for four separate colleges. Part-time assignment rights, seniority, and load must come through impact bargaining as a whole.<\/p>\n

Peralta was the first district in California to pay part-timers the same hourly rate as full-timers for teaching and office hours. PFT members built that over ten years. The work is not finished. Much of our work outside the classroom still goes unpaid or underpaid, including department meetings, curriculum revision, assessment, and recommendation letters. The 67% load cap makes that work harder to pay and report to CalSTRS.<\/p>\n

Our fully paid part-time health coverage depends on continued state reimbursement. If Sacramento cuts that program, we need a plan ready before the cut, not after.<\/p>\n

AI tools are entering our classrooms and our workload as the district expands distance education. I teach AI and computational methods at UC Berkeley. I will bring that knowledge to PFT’s AI & Faculty Labor working group and push for clear contract language on three points:<\/p>\n