The call of adjuncts: Unionize!
December 30, 2009 by Geneva ReidPosted in: Academics, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
In a tough economy, adjunct faculty are in an especially risky position. That’s why many have decided to protect themselves by forming unions. There are now 22 colleges with adjunct unions, including: Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (NY), Montana State University, Rhode Island College and Western Michigan University.
Although a recent study found the differences in adjunct working conditions were just about the same across the board — with or without a union — these part-timers feel they need to do something to increase their job security.
American Federation of Teachers VP, Barbara Bowen, told The Chronicle of Higher Education: “For too long, there was the prevailing feeling among many adjuncts that they were an invincible part of the profession. But the silence in the profession about contingent faculty has been broken.”
Take, for example, Rhode Island College. Adjunct faculty recently okayed a contract, which gave them a 3% pay hike as well as seniority and job-security rights. This is the first time adjuncts at Rhode Island’s public colleges reached a contract.
But it’s not all clear sailing.
In states such as Ohio, the law prohibits adjuncts from organizing collective-bargaining units.
And at Temple University in Pennsylvania, an Adjunct Awareness Week was held recently by about 50 adjuncts in hopes of joining the school’s faculty union. More specifically, the 1,500-plus part-timers were asking for their own offices and a process by which they could achieve full-time status.
Is an adjunct union an idea whose time has been a long time coming? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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Tags: Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (NY), Montana State University, Rhode Island College, Temple University, Western Michigan University
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December 23rd, 2009 at 11:14 am
Our adjunct are scheduled “as needed”, which may not be every term. While some are hoping for an opportunity for a full time position, most are working professionals who only want to teach part time, or every once in awhile. Unionizing would only establish rules that would make things difficult for both the college and the adjuncts.
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 am
I agree, it is time for Adjuncts to Unionize. Part-time instructors are the back-bone of most institutions of higher ed. They usually end up teaching basic, entry level courses and yet, have the most impact on whether a student stays in college or not. If we can’t afford to pay Adjuncts what they are worth, then we certainly should be able to give them the respect and benefits they so deserve. Here at UNLV, at least in the Department of English, we have tried to support our Adjuncts in every way possible including the development of the international “wordriver Literary Journal” which is open ONLY to Adjunct submissions world-wide. As a department we value their input, recognize their contribution and support them whole-heartedly!
Susan
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I echo Pam’s comments. This is my third university and all out adjuncts are hired “as needed”. We don’t have regular adjuncts. I’m also a business professor and AACSB accredidation guidelines requires a minimum of 3/4 of the courses be taught by a full-time, terminal degree, professor. An adjunct union in this area will destroy the opportunity to teach (as an adjunct) and reduce the number of courses (many of them electives) that we offer.
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Unions fail..No question about it. Every institution where there is union representation have failed. I highly recommend that if there is even a conversation in your organization, I recommend that you provide an intensive training on the actual reasons of why staff want to form a union and address it as needed rather than union representation. Heck, look at the 3 big auto dealerships…one (this is one of many) major reason on why these companies fail is due to the unions.
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
The organization of adjunct faculty into unions would be one of the best things that could happen for the preservation of tenure. Adjunct faculty are being increasingly utilized because administrators view them as “cheap and disposable”. Unionization would take care of that! I say go for it.
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:13 pm
You should look at the California State University, where the adjuncts are part of the faculty union (themajority of union members, actually) and where they have won substantial benefits, more than in any university system in the nation to the best of my knowledge. They have multi year contracts, the right to be hired up to full time for any vacancy – in order of seniority), the same pay at the same levels basically as full time faculty, etc.). They even have a modified form of tenure in the form of the 3 year contracts. However, they don’t have the right to work – if the big U doesn’t have work for them (as now, with all the budget problems) then they can be laid off. This summer one campus is converting from a state supported summer to summer sessions, and the part timers are supposed to be hired ahead of full timers.
Meanwhile the full time tenured faculty have received few benefits from the union membership, although the union people will vociferously dispute this.
The plight of higher education is a sad one – and we are fast getting to the point of dilemmas where there is no easy way out. The combination of an administration that wants part timers to save money and a union that vociferously supports them with multiple grievance filings etc is a potent one, and one that the full timers have been unable to combat.
All in all, it is a good recipe for the decline of higher education in the United States. I am glad that I graduated in the 1960s and that my kids are out of college.
Who, however, is going to be earning those big bucks to pay for our generation’s social security?
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Perhaps IG would have liked a job as an 8-year-old in an 1800s textile mill with a 7 day workweek, 12 hour days, no injury compensation, etc.
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
While I may not reflect the views of other adjuncts, I would be against unionization. I am an adjunct in the mold which Pam had described. I have a successful career. I have found that teaching classes in my field allow me to stay current, help the next generation of workers, and earn some extra spending money. I find this work to be very rewarding but do not wish to teach more than 1 course per semester or 2 to 3 courses per year. I am not anti union having once been an active member, I just do not see a need in my current position. If given a choice between joining a union or giving up my adjunct position, I would give up the teaching.
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
In the college with which I was associated for 37 years, teaching as an adjunct was very rarely a path to a full-time line. Adjunct teaching is rewarding as an avocation supported by a full-time job outside of academia. Otherwise, it is a waste of time.
My advice to adjuncts with aspirations in education is: forget them and find another line of work. If you are committed to scholarship and teaching, finish your PhDs and get jobs in the best public school systems you can find. Higher education is, and is destined to be, a gulag offering starvation wages to the overly optimistic.
December 23rd, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I don’t think IG is out of the line here. Yes Union was needed back in 1800′s but might not work today. US simply cannot compete in the global market. I know union leaders (more than 1 union, K-12, higher ed and industries) so willing to layoff junior members instead of cutting 3-5% of everybody’s salaries. The bottom line, their pension is secured. Many leaders are near their retirement age.
As for California State U, we do have all that benefits per Ted’s statement. But in reality, we really don’t have any. We can have multiple-year contracts, but in many departments, they are all yearly. And even then, there is no saying we will be teaching the following semester. All the contracts are per needed basis. We definitely DO NOT have the right to be hired in full-time. In fact, we weren’t even told about the vacancies. We have to find out through outside publications or friends. This is true not only for 1 department, but 2 I experienced in, and a couple more through other adjuncts.
December 23rd, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Of course adjuncts should have a union- tenure by full timers has been abused for years and very often, I see adjunct professionals doing more, achieving more and make substaintial contributions to their profession while admistration and those “higher” up do nothing but rest on their laurals. How can these so-called professional educators and administrators judge whether or not someone should have their benefits when they are not achieving themselves? Your position in a school or university should be based on your overall contributions to your area or disipline- this is the fairest root to go and a union can only help.
December 24th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Adjuncts will only hurt themselves by unionizing. Adjuncts are an “as needed” part of the facultlly, and most colleges and universities will simply move away from this method of staffing if they unionize and start making the same demands as full time faculty.
December 24th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Union, yes! I have been an adjunct for more than 20 years, and do it because I love the work. However, having a union is a absolute necessity to define rights and responsibilities. Unlike me, though, many of my adjunct colleagues are not “dilettantes” but are actually trying to cobble together a living from several adjunct assignments. Increasingly, the university is relying on us as a disposable workforce. Being more than an at-will employee helps us and helps the students we teach. There is no contradiction between liking your work, liking your teaching assignment, and embracing the collective approach to terms and conditions of employment.
December 24th, 2009 at 11:44 am
In my initial posting, I did not mention that I started as an adjunct instructor. When I started, I never expected that I would end up full time and making a career change to higher ed.
As an adjunct, I was paid only $14 an hour (classroom time only). I was teaching courses, such as accounting, where grading was pretty time intensive. I was also expected to tutor students at no pay. By the time I calculated in the time for prep, grading, and tutoring, I am not even sure I was making minimum wage. So I can see why some may feel a union would be a good thing.
Still, I don’t think a union would have helped, nor would I have joined. If a union had demanded higher wages, I am absolutely sure fewer adjunct would have been hired and more would have been pushed onto the full time instructors and administrators. Bottom line is, I chose to teach as an adjunct, regardless of pay. Most of the adjunct I have met (at least prior to the current economy) are teaching because they want to, not because they have to.
That being said, when a college has a full time opening, it makes no sense to me why they would not look first to their adjunct faculty. It surprises me to hear that some do not.
December 24th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I teach at a private university in California and because of my collective bargaining unit’s efforts have 1)job security, 2) retirement benefits, 3) employer-subsidized health insurance, 4) employer-provided life insurance, and 4) a voice in curricular policy and employment issues. Did I mention that I earn a per-class rate that is five times what I have earned at other non-union positions in the same city? Incidentally, at my university, adjuncts comprise the majority of academic workers (the ratio of contingent faculty to tenured faculty is roughly 5:3). I am confused as to why some adjuncts on this discussion board believe that acquiring better benefits and pay will make them less likely to be hired. This fear has no basis in fact.
Collective bargaining is an imperfect process and labor organizations are certainly imperfect institutions (I have many, many concerns about the way the executive officers of my local do things). But unions (most notably UAW and AFT) have fought, tenaciously, to earn contingent faculty the respect and wages we deserve. I would encourage all adjunct colleagues out there to challenge administrative/managerial arguments about a possible scarcity of work for organized adjuncts and to consider the many, many benefits of union membership.
P. S. A great book on this subject is *Reclaiming the Ivory Tower” — a compelling read for anyone interested in higher ed labor issues. Good luck to you all.
December 25th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Adjuncts are actually full-timers who don’t have to go to meetings and who don’t have to pretend to be excited about other people’s idiotic ideas. For that privilege they take a 50% paycut, which is probably a good deal.
December 25th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Forming an adjunct union would be great. Then they can try to squeeze as much as they can out of the university system. Further squeeze departmental budgets and make the departments take more out of already dwindling resources for classroom/laboratory materials and spend it on benefits. I was an adjunct for more than 7 years before I was hired full-time (not at any of the schools I was an adjunct at). People should be hired on merit not collective bargaining. I was hired on merit not any special requirements, i.e., affirmative action, disability, or a union. I also think that tenure should be gotten rid of. Coming from a family of academics, I have seen what tenure can produce. It was instituted to keep academic freedom and honesty as a cornerstone of the educational system, but now it has become a way for substandard (read in lazy) faculty to maintain their jobs. If a faculty member is substandard it shouldn’t take years of building a case against them and a lawsuit to be paid off to get rid of them. And, as Ted mentioned, go ahead and look at the California higher eduction system. Isn’t California almost $30 BILLION in the red as far as operating expenses. I am sure all that collective bargaining has worked out well for someone, and I don’t think it was the students, or, for that fact, even the faculty. However, I am sure that the people running the unions are doing just fine, along with the politicians in there pockets. Enough said on those topics, but to those adjuncts out their looking for a job or better pay; get a terminal degree, do your job well, ask for a raise with justification, and be careful about rocking the boat. If I had to give benefits to “4″ adjuncts and take out of departmental funds to do it I would just hire “1″ full-time faculty member and dispose of the 4 adjunct positions. Think before acting.
December 26th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
RC,
I think you may need to educate yourself about what is happening to public higher ed in California before making broad claims about its decline. Many liberal and conservative economics experts have attributed the UC/State systems’ problems to a general lack of funding, not to unduly burdensome labor costs (unless we take into account administrative salaries and benefits, which both the LA Times and the San Francisco Chronicle have shown are extremely bloated). Warren Buffet, who once advised Arnold Schwarzenegger, identified Proposition 13, the property tax cap that Cal state voters approved in the 1970′s, as the culprit responsible for California’s economic/educational woes. Before Prop 13, California had the best public educational system in the nation; now, because of a lack of funds, we have one of the worst. Look at sates like Maine and Vermont, which have higher property taxes and strong educational mandates, and you’ll find a correlation between funding, intention, and performance. These states, not surprisingly, have fantastic schools that deliver.
December 27th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Everyone works for a purpose. If your purpose does not match the mission of your university employer, then you should change your purpose or find another employer that embraces your purpose. The “idea” that a union may advance your purpose as an adjunct professor is flawed. A third party cannot do anything for you that you can already do for yourself. Consider focusing on teaching excellence, caring for students, advancing meaningful contributions, and becoming a better adjunct professor who brings unique learning experiences to the classroom. Consider your calling as an adjunct to be a genuine privilege, not a job.
I have taught as an adjunct at four universities since 1972, and have never observed the need for union representation.
December 28th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
So many anti-union opinions are fundamentally selfish and short-sighted: “I’ve never seen a problem, I’ve never needed a union, I’ve never observed the need for a union” etc. This is like saying that, since you were never abused as a child, have never observed any child abuse of effects of child abuse, there is no need to pursue and convict those who abuse children. Other opinions are blatantly ideological, putting forth stock conservative arguments that have not been proven: unions cause trouble, make things more difficult and more time consuming, are the cause for failure of large corporations or institutions by unreasonable demands, and make it difficult to compete globally. These assertions are all still major public debates with no definitive answers on the one side or the other. I have been a union leader for ten years, and most of the perceptions faculty have of unions and how they really work and what they can actually do, are MIS-perceptions. Unions really can do very little to help individuals in the short term. The strength, and the true value of unions, is their ability to help everyone by improving conditions for all employees. Unions help to codify, and clarify by making open for all to read, the rules for both the employer and the employee, so that all are treated the same. Through the modest contributions of members, both monetary and work effort, everyone’s work life can be improved. Gains are often modest and incremental. All workers need some kind of power base, if just to put them on an even playing field with the management or administration, which, without a union, would control everything and make all the decisions. So you live under a benevolent tyrant? Fine, I guess you don’t need a union. I would prefer to work under a contract that had been negotiated by my peers, than under the “take it or leave it” administrative directives. I also believe that it benefits the college administration, to be required to put in the time and effort to negotiate fair wages and working conditions with their employees, and then be obligated to honor that contract. Management must plan for the needs of their employees. Then there is just basic fairness, which I still believe in. Call me a dreamer, but I believe in respecting human beings. Adjuncts bear the burden of most student contact and teaching in almost any college or university. The ratio climbs to the sky, except and unless there are built in protections, such as the accreditation demand cited above, in state law, as in California, or in a union contract. Adjuncts often have no office, no telephone, no health insurance, no retirement plan. Adjuncts are often not consulted on issues relevant to their department or discipline. Adjuncts, at many colleges, are not considered “real” faculty. Many adjuncts are “freeway flyers” and teach much more than full time at numerous colleges or online in an effort to simply live a decent life. I am surprised that more adjuncts don’t join our college’s union- which has done more to improve the role of, and respect for, adjuncts than any other group.
December 29th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I am an adjunct in Florida, and I am all for the idea of unions for adjuncts, or at least for adjuncts to to have the right to join the same union the fulltimers belong to. What they do to adjuncts is criminal and should be against the law. At my institution, during the past 25 years, adjuncts have seen a total of three raises. Even the garbage man gets a raise once in a while, but adjuncts, in the eyes of the state of Florida, don’t have bills to pay. We are, in every sense of the term, indentured servants.
December 30th, 2009 at 9:47 am
If I am understanding this, there seems to be two disticnt groups of adjunt faculty. The first group has successful careers and teach part time for various reasons. The second group is piecing together a career by teaching as many classes as possible. This may be “short-sighted” of me, but as a member of the first group I do not understand what the goal of the second group is, but I can definitely see they would be in favor of unionizing. I on the other hand already have all the benefits a union can bring through my full-time position and see nothing I can gain through joining a union. This may be “selfish” on my part but I would vote against a union if it ever came up at my college.
December 30th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Pay raise for adjuncts? Sharon, I don’t get a pay raise and I’m a full-time tenured professor. The only time I regularly get a pay raise is if I change jobs. Honestly, in the last ten years I’ve had only 2 pay raises, the biggest of the two was almost 2%. This is expected and normal in my area (marketing/business school).
January 4th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Adjuncts are the backbone of our institution–The Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland. The large majority of adjuncts teach as many courses as they are permitted to teach each semester and are in search of full-time positions. The disparity between the pay of English adjuncts and the pay of full-time English professors is ridiculous at our college! It is disgusting and a terrible insult to all those adjuncts who are most often the first teachers students encounter at a community college.
I know adjuncts who have worked for our college for 15-20-25 years, who have interviewed unsuccessfully for full-time positions numerous times during their years of the service. These folks–adjuncts–make up the bulk of our professors in a number of subjects. I have always wondered why adjuncts had not already unionized, so I am delighted to hear that unionization of adjuncts has begun to happen. I will lend my support to that end in any way I can.
January 4th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Cheri, and others…I am curious to know why adjuncts would not be hired when they apply for full time openings. What is the rationale for hiring from outside if you have long time adjuncts, who are doing a fine job, applying for an opening? Does it have to do with having a doctorate?
At my college, we are proud of our “zoomers” (of which I am one)–full time employees who started out as adjuncts. It took me about six months to be hired full time, although timeline varies depending on how soon there is an opening. In my case, I chose an opening in administration where I still had opportunity to teach.
January 4th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Cheri, I have to wonder along with you about this one…Cheri wrote: “I know adjuncts who have worked for our college for 15-20-25 years, who have interviewed unsuccessfully for full-time positions numerous times during their years of the service.”
I’ve interviewed multiple times in my 12 years as an adjunct faculty member, both at the community colleges (2) where I’ve been working and at outside institutions. I’ve been in the top 5 interviewees at least twice. Every time it was someone from outside the institution who got the position. I would love to see a change that allowed those of us who are already committed to a school and who are valuable to our institutions, whether they know it or not, to move into vacated FT positions ahead of those from outside. There doesn’t seem to be a problem calling on me when someone is needed to fill in as Full time pro-rata for 6 months, do extra work full timers won’t do or don’t have time to do, take a last minute class, or “be flexible” on scheduling, etc. For now, I’ve given up putting myself through the embarrassing, taxing, bewildering exercise of trying to explain in an interview – to a panel made up of my supervisor and fellow teachers – why I deserve a full time position. (Been there, done that–5 times) I am moving toward a similar conclusion as Rick Shur who wrote, “Adjuncts are actually full-timers who don’t have to go to meetings and who don’t have to pretend to be excited about other people’s idiotic ideas. For that privilege they take a 50% paycut, which is probably a good deal.”
I don’t know where you are working if the majority of the adjuncts just “do it because they want to, not because they have to”. That is not the case at the schools where I teach. Most of us put together our living as best we can within a seriously flawed system with several tiers of faculty. I’ve worked more than 50% of full time at one College for 12 years, and 33.3% or more at my second school. I have it pretty good, considering that I am now in the “priority part time” tier or “senior associate” level. I see instructors all around me struggling, especially in the last year or so when we had to cut back classes to bare bones.
We have a strong union in the Seattle Community College District. I support our union, because nobody else is looking out for the interests of Part time faculty. I hope that our union can bring about further changes such as those in this article.
January 4th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
In the English department at my institution, there are 67 adjuncts and 25 fulltimers. We often teach four classes per semester, in addition to having to work somewhere else because they won’t pay us a living wage. I, for example, teach four classes every semester, tutor about 20 hours a week in our writing center, and I do freelance work for a major publishing company–just so I can pay the rent. The full timers have gotten raises every year without fail, but adjuncts haven’t seen a penny (literally) in ten years. It doesn’t matter how long we have been working, it doesn’t matter that our students nominate us for teaching awards, it doesn’t matter that many of us are published writers, it doesn’t matter how hard we work or what we do, for the truth is we will never see a dime. Our dept head tells us to go to professional development, but this means we have to cancel class and lose a day’s pay in the process, so we can go do something for work. If full timers were required to lose pay every time they had to go to professional development, you can bet they’d picket, write to the newspapers, and have their unions fight their cause of unfair labor treatment. Why, then, is this considered fair and just because we’re adjuncts? The last time I checked, I have the same credentials as the fulltimer, and in some cases, I have been teaching longer than they have. I ask one question. How many institutions would be able to open their doors without the adjuncts who often make up 60% or more of the faculty? To Tom and others who believe adjuncts don’t deserve any rights, walk a mile in my shoes. We are human beings and dedicated professionals, not second class citizens, but that is exactly how we are treated.
January 4th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Our adjuncts generally receive pay raises annually, as the union bargains them for all university staff. It is far from enough to live on, but certainly better than waiting for charity from an employer. Just to put some numbers into this discussion, I will share what that means specifically. The current pay for someone at my level (no advanced degree but 20 years experience) is about $4800 for a course, the rate just having been increased this past September. Those with advanced degrees earn more.
January 5th, 2010 at 12:43 am
Bill–thank you for putting some numbers into the conversation. I appreciate it, as I am always trying to find out what adjuncts at other institutions make. Your pay sounds awesome to me–you referred to your employer as a university, and the fact that I work for a community college definately explains some of the difference in our pay. But you also mentioned your union and the fact that your union has bargained for annual pay raises for all university staff. In light of your experience alone, I can’t see how any adjunct out there could be “against” unionizing.
Now I will insert some outrageous numbers into the discussion: there is no pay scale based on seniority or merit for adjuncts at my college–adjuncts with years of experience make the same amount as adjuncts with no experience. Those who put endless hours into preparation make the same as those who hardly prepare. I am fairly certain that adjuncts with doctorates make the same amount as adjuncts with master’s degrees, but I believe those holding masters’ and doctorates make slightly more than those with BA’s. As an English adjunct with 5 years teaching experience at this same institution and a Master’s degree in Writing, I make $690 dollars per credit hour, i.e., $2070 for each 3 credit course I teach. If I want to be recognized for 5 years of service as an adjunct, I can arrive early to the upcoming adjunct conference and have my picture taken with our college president!
Pam, I don’t really know why adjuncts are passed over for full-time positions. I didn’t mean to say that we are always passed over, but I have seen it happen time and again. Maybe it is a problem with my college in particular because I have also seen folks in other temporary hourly positions get passed over for full-time openings in their areas, even passed over for jobs they were actually doing!
Some contributors to this conversation take the basic attitude of “if you don’t like it, lump it” toward adjuncts and the conditions we work under, but that is only a way of tossing the problem aside. Most adjuncts I know love teaching and want to continue doing what they are doing. There are multitudes of reasons people choose to teach as adjuncts. We shouldn’t take the perverse approach of blaming adjuncts for the conditions they are forced to work under. “You don’t like the conditions, so you shouldn’t work there” is a lot like telling a rape victim “you got raped there, so you shouldn’t have been walking there”. I can understand to some extent the idea of not beating one’s head into a wall, but that means not continuing to stay and take a beating after I have done everything I can to change something for the better. If an institution has never even had a union for adjuncts, why call a premature shot?
January 6th, 2010 at 5:32 am
My university in Calif won’t even announce vacancies to the part-timers, not just in 1 or 2 departments from what I know. The logic other adjuncts said was that “since they already have us teaching here, they would rather look outside. If they hire us to the full-time, they would still have to find another adjunct to fill our shoes….. more work for them”.
I don’t know if this makes any sense, but that what other people was telling me.
By the way, we are unionized!
January 6th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
How do even begin to form a union?
January 7th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
first find out if you already have one- it’s surprising how many faculty are not aware one already exists at their college. To form a union, I recommend first contact the AAUP and find out if you live in a so-called “right to work” state. Arizona, Utah, come to mind as states with laws that make it very difficult to form a union. AAUP also has helpful information on other topics. If you live in California, as I do, contact the CPFA, California Part-time Faculty Association. Also look into COCAL, the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor-California. They are very helpful. Even if you don’t live in CA, their websites have good starting point information. Some unions are independent, and some are affiliated with the “big players” such as NEA and the AFL-CIO, and this is where we usually hear the accusations of corruption and of labor leaders being in some politician’s pocket. That may have been true in the 60s – 80s but I doubt it today. The one problem I find with the big unions is that they represent such a diverse workforce that the specific needs of academics are often less well represented. That’s why i recommend starting with the organizations cited above.
January 7th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Hiring part timers for full time positions is policy set by the HR department at the college. Many college unions, such as ours, have negotiated hiring preference or priority for part timers, for future part time openings. But for full time positions, work experience is work experience. Five years at one college teaching one subject are the same as five years teaching the same subject at a similar college. However, a faculty with five years teaching at a top flight U. might be preferable over a faculty from Podunk College, when applying at another top flight U, and vice versa when applying at another podunk. If you want a full time position anywhere, it’s your responsibility to keep track of available openings and apply for them. Any hiring process is somewhat of a “black box” from the applicant’s perspective, since you don’t know who else is applying and what their experience and credentials are. I hear a lot of resentment from part timers who apply for full time positions and don’t get them. But that is not a negotiable issue and is outside the scope of any union’s power to act or change. If you could PROVE that you were not hired simply because you were a long time part timer at that college, you might have grounds for an EEOE lawsuit.
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I’m not certain that having a part-time faculty union is the solution to the adjunct problems of no “job security” and a 2-tiered pay system. I was a member of a union in CA that did nothing but echo the administration in finding loopholes to “seniority rehire rights,” and therefore I lost my position. Moreover, in relocating from CA to OR, I found out that part-time faculty at the community colleges here are paid a flat fee of $476 per credit no matter how many years of experience and/or advanced degrees we have. It’s high time that part-timers unite in fighting these unfair practices across the US, not just in one district or one state.
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I don’t have time to read all these posts. Let me just say that anyone who thinks unions are unnecessary or counterproductive for intellectual workers is wrong and possibly ignorant. I think if a union for tenured faculty already exists at a college, then contingent faculty should be allowed to become members of it rather than form their own, separate union. Administrators love nothing better than to “divide and conquer”. But this means that tenured faculty need to overcome their myopia, which limits their concerns to themselves, and pay attention to the needs of their adjunct colleagues. If NO union exists at a college, then yes, contingent faculty should form their own. I would like to end with a quote from Albert Einstein: “I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and also, generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field.” And he made this comment in 1938!
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:29 pm
I teach in a unionized community college in California and my union has fought hard for part-timers. Some of you wanted numbers and doubted that community colleges pay as much as 4-year colleges. In my community college I am at the top of the salary schedule (which tops out after 9 years) and I make $5175 per semester for a three unit class. I am paid for office hours, have district-subisidized medical benefits for myself and my husband(where we would otherwise have no access to health insurance because of pre-exisiting conditions) and decent retirement benefits.
No, it is not all perfect… while in our district adjuncts have seniority, it is a poor and unfair system and in these difficult times adjunct faculty have taken pay cuts, had assignments slashed and lost eligibility for medical benefits while full-time faculty have not really suffered. I don’t blame full-time faculty but adjunct faculty have to work on changing the contract to better their lot and through the union we are working on it.
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:54 pm
It is only obvious that adjuncts are treated unfairly, that we deserve rights. I agree 100% that something needs to be done at the national level. The things these institutions get away with should be against the law. Whoever heard of going 10 or 20 years without ever seeing a raise? The question is, how do we even begin when adjuncts don’t even know each other? Who do we turn to when the institutions and the states we work for don’t care about teachers? We deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:37 pm
It’s never easy in this climate, but I would reach out to the unions that have helped adjuncts organize and tell them you’d like some assistance. American Federation of Teachers, Communications Workers of America, and United Automobile Workers are good places to start.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Phyllis E describes ideal adjunct working conditions–such conditions should be uniform in all community colleges everywhere, and the only way for this to become anywhere near reality is through collective bargaining via teacher’s unions. I must say I am rather shocked by the several anti-union posts here–apparently some educated folks have swallowed the Big Lie–that unions are somehow responsible for placing too many demands on management/college administrations . . . but Maybelle has described what unions do, so I’ll just leave it here. In Art and Labor . . .
May 6th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I belong to a union in one of the three schools in which I teach, and while we didn’t get everything we bargained for first time around, we did make some important advances. It didn’t solve the intrinsic contradictions and horrors of adjunct teaching, but that’s a matter of national labor standards that should be in place. It should be illegal for universities to pay adjuncts a fraction of the pay that full-timers get for teaching the same classes with the same credentials. I think unions can be especially helpful in big, faceless universities where the corporate mentality operates from afar and adjuncts don’t stand a chance of being treated decently without the extra help. In the school I made reference to, adjuncts were the only labor cohort on campus that was not unionized, so guess what rolled downhill on us every new semester?