Michigan Faculty Union Contract Protects $100K+ Pay For FTers & Cuts Adjunct Pay

In 2010, union President Frederick van Hartesveldt III told Grand Rapids Community College trustees, “We have become GRAC — Grand Rapids Adjunct College.” Van Hartesveldt said the college had about 260 full-time professors, but 940 adjunct instructors. The full-timers covered 4,470 contact hours — time spent before students — while part-timers covered 4,620, about 51 percent. Shortly after speaking to the trustees, van Hartesveldt backed away from his own insulting comments in a letter to the college’s part-time faculty, some of whom had taken exception to being being attacked by the union to which the contract requires them to pay dues. He wrote: “Please don’t […]