Community College of Philadelphia faculty and staff want improved wages and benefits. They could soon strike.

The contracts of faculty and staff at Community College of Philadelphia expired last year, and after months of bargaining for new ones, the college employees could go on strike soon.

The union has been negotiating since January 2024 for new contracts for its roughly 1,200 members, who include full-time faculty, staff, and adjuncts. The most recent contracts expired Aug. 31, and union leaders are seeking improved wages and benefits for their members.

“The issue at this point though is that we’ve been talking about all of the things that we need to achieve in these contracts for over a year,” said union copresident and English professor Junior Brainard. “We’re not seeing the movement in bargaining that needs to happen.”

» READ MORE: Philadelphia Community College and its faculty union reach tentative labor agreement

A six-year agreement was ratified in 2019 after three years of bargaining. That contract was later extended.

On Friday, college representatives and union leaders met to discuss the union’s latest counteroffer, which Brainard called a “prestrike” offer. A strike authorization vote is planned for the week of March 10.

“We made progress in today’s negotiations with the college’s Faculty and Staff Federation,” the college administration said in a statement. “We continue to bargain in good faith and intend to meet with the Federation during spring break. Our hope is that negotiations will successfully conclude with the culmination of three fair contracts and no impact on the spring semester, ensuring minimal disruption to our students.

“The College continues to prioritize providing wage increases for faculty and staff while also maintaining best-in-class health-care benefits.”

Brainard, however, disagreed that progress was made.

» READ MORE: Strike shuts CCP

“They have not agreed to a single one of our priorities,” he said, citing “real raises, addressing the staffing crisis, and meeting the needs of our students with SEPTA passes and on-campus childcare.”

The minimum starting salary for a full-time faculty member is $56,095 for the academic year, Brainard said, while the average full-time faculty salary is $79,400. Part-time faculty start at $1,671 per credit hour, or approximately $5,000 per course, while staff earn a minimum of $16.48 an hour.

» READ MORE: Community College of Philadelphia announces rebranding campaign to attract and retain students: ‘Rise from Within’

The last time the union went on strike was 2007 and classes were canceled. If the strike authorization is approved, a strike could be called at any time, said Brainard.

“I think it just depends on what’s happening in bargaining. If the college wants to continue to bargain and make progress, we’re going to do that. If they are not … our bargaining teams would have the authority to call a strike,” he said.

The union is bargaining three separate contracts for faculty, staff, and adjuncts.

The college administration recently offered a three-year contract with a 5% wage increase the first year and 4% in each of the following two years.

On Friday, the union, which is seeking a four-year contract, asked for 9% increases in the first two years, followed by 6% in each of the following two years. They also want raises for part-time faculty to match what adjuncts are making at Temple University, and a minimum wage of $20 an hour for the staff unit.

“We’re at a place right now where over half of the staff at CCP do not make a living wage, which means most of our staff and many of our faculty are working second and third jobs to make ends meet, or they’re leaving the college for better jobs,” said Brainard.

The union also wants to reopen a childcare center on campus that closed during the pandemic, and offer employees and students free transit passes.

The college has been facing a “staffing crisis,” said Brainard. While the staff unit has shrunk by roughly 25% since the pandemic, enrollment has increased to nearly pre-pandemic levels, he said. This spring, enrollment is about 12,400 credit students and 1,381 noncredit students, the college said.

The union also wants smaller class sizes and more support for students. Some disciplines don’t have tutors, noted Marissa Johnson-Valenzuela, secretary for the union and an English professor at the college.

“We have people across this college who are doing the jobs of two or three people and are exhausted and cannot do all of the work that is being pushed onto them,” said Brainard of the staff unit.

The college said it was able to avoid job cuts and layoffs during the pandemic through attrition and that while enrollment has been improving since 2022, “the unfortunate reality is that enrollment was in decline for several years before the pandemic.”

“Even now, the college remains significantly smaller than it was at its peak in 2011-2012.”

The college also maintained that faculty numbers “are in line with the negotiated faculty ratios” in the bargaining agreement and that the college hired 20 new faculty last year.

The negotiations are unfolding as the college receives an influx of government funding.

City Council approved an additional $5 million for the college for this fiscal year.

“That was a result of faculty, staff, and students testifying at City Council about the things that we are fighting for in this contract campaign,” said Brainard. “That money was to address the need for real raises and living wages, it was for critical student support, and it was to address the staffing crisis here at the college.”

Brainard also noted that federal relief funding during the pandemic allowed the college to put money away in reserves.

“They’ve got additional money from the city, additional money from the state, unprecedented money in reserves, and they still haven’t made any proposals in bargaining to use the money,” he said.

The college, however, said the additional city support will fund the raises the college has offered over three years and that it would not come close to covering what the union has sought in raises.

As for the reserves, the college built those with onetime federal COVID relief funding and expects to have to use some of those funds to pay for the raises. The board of trustees aims to maintain 25% of its operating budget ― which now would be about $41 million ― in reserves at all times, the college said.