Part-Time Thoughts

• I Can Help With That. Maybe.

  4 Comments
  17 Nov 2009 /  AFT, NEA, SEIU, organizing, part-time faculty, unions
  I participate in a city-wide politics email listserv in the town where I live. Recently, a woman posted a detailed message about what the group should do to reach a larger audience so as to stop preaching to the choir, as it were. The last three words of her email were classic: 

  “I’m not volunteering.”

  To me, her lack of leadership ability stood out for all to see.  

  At our house, when we want to tease each other about not taking responsibility for a task, we say with a chipper smile, “I can help with that.” Translation: “I ain’t gonna bust my chops by taking charge, but if you’ll take charge, then I can help with that. Maybe.” The “I can help with that,” syndrome is all too common. No one wants to lead anything, but if a leader—strong, true and charismatic—steps forward to lead the troops, well, there are lots of people who can “help with that.” Maybe.

  Does this hew and cry sound familiar? “Adjuncts need to have a nation-wide strike!!!” 

  How about this one?  “Adjuncts need a national union!!!” (Exclamation points are always included in these battle cries of the Adjunct Republic.)

  Both of these statements are true. What I can’t fathom, though, is from which corner of the world the Mahatma will arise to lead our nation’s 700,000 non-tenured faculty to independence and self-determination. AAUP’s Marc Bousquet, a full-time faculty member, frequently urges adjuncts in his blog to lead their own movement. Oddly, when the AAUP President appointed co-chairs of the union’s Committee on Part-time Faculty, he appointed Bousquet, who accepted the position. So not only must the Mahatma arise spontaneously, the Mahatma can’t even catch a break and get appointed a co-chair.

  Do you realize what it would take to launch a national union for adjunct faculty? Four IRS forms and a set of bylaws. The IRS has a web site, and you can get EIN (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98350,00.html) and TIN (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=96696,00.html) numbers by phone. Forming and launching a national union wouldn’t be difficult. However, at the moment, there are several hundred thousand temporary faculty moaning, wringing their hands, and muttering “I can help with that.”  When one remembers that among these part-time faculty there are hundreds if not thousands with graduate degrees in labor relations, and who teach other people about advocacy and organizing, the situation begins to resemble opera buffa. I can imagine Carlo Goldoni penning the music to the comedic opera “Adjuncts Need a National Union!!!”

  Make no mistake: the Mahatma who steps up will find himself in a cat fight with the AFT, NEA and perhaps the AAUP, but when the dust settles, the adjunct union will grow, and eventually rake in the same hundreds of millions in union dues from affiliates that the NEA, SEIU and AFT bring in each year. Such a national adjunct union will change the face of higher education, as the union’s affiliates play tug o’ war with tenure-line and tenured faculty union affiliates for more equitable division of teaching duties, money, benefits and professional development funds.

  Today’s national higher education union leaders could help adjuncts within their unions break away and form a national union. Good idea, huh? It’s not mine. In Ontario, Canada, OPSEU’s President Smokey Thomas did just that for 10,500 part-timers. He and his OPSEU members formed and financed OPSEUCAT, currently led by part-timer Roger Courvette. Union leaders at NEA, AFT and even the AAUP could easily help a group of part-timers form a national union. AFT, NEA and AAUP could even allow part-time affiliates that wished to do so to migrate to the new union.  

  I had hoped the recent formation of the New Faculty Majority was the first step toward a national union for adjuncts, and then I read that the founders did not intend the group to replace existing unions, or engage in collective bargaining. The group’s initial launch, without a name, formalized agenda or clear focus, signals a long and arduous road to be traversed before any advocacy—adjunct or otherwise—may be expected.  

  Will the Mahatma arise? Yes, but I believe the person will come from outside of higher education. The Mahatma will not be any of the usual suspects, whose published essays and blog postings we read with relish and which cause us to post comments sprinkled liberally with exclamation points. When the Mahatma comes, will the hundreds of thousands of faculty who are currently under-employed in non-tenured positions “help with that?”

  Maybe.

  Tags: AAUP, AFT, Marc Bousquet, NEA, New Faculty Majority, OPSEU, Roger Courvette, SEIU, Smokey Thomas

• PT Faculty & The Employee Free Choice Act

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  20 May 2009 /  AAUP, AFT, NEA, organizing, part-time faculty, politics, unions
  In 1975, there were about 275,000 part-time faculty employed in the United States. Over the past 30 years, the number of faculty off the tenure-track has mushroomed to over 800,000 individuals, or about 70 percent of the total college faculty employed in the United States. Recent studies suggest that these faculty teach, on average, half of the courses offered at colleges and universities. It is a common misconception that the number of faculty on the tenure-track has stagnated. Quite the opposite is true. Over the past decade, the number of tenure-faculty has increased by over 50,000 individuals nationwide. Of course the number of faculty off the tenure-track has increased more quickly. 

  As the number of faculty off the tenure-track grew, leaders of the the three major education labor unions did little more than fiddle while Rome burned. If it weren’t so tragic, the systemic ineptitude would be comical. In 1992, the AFT represented some 45,000 part-time faculty, most of whom were in the union’s New York, California, Oregon and Washington affiliates. Today, some 17 years later, the AFT represents around 60,000 part-time faculty, most of whom teach in New York, California, Oregon, Washington and Michigan. In 17 years, while higher education saw the number of part-time faculty climb to over 500,000 individuals, the AFT organized 1,100 part-timers per year. AAUP has actually lost part-time faculty members. Today, the group reports some 3,500 part-time faculty members. A decade ago, AAUP represented almost 6,000 part-timers. AAUP recently formed a strategic alliance with AFT in order to jointly organize faculty groups on campuses. 

  On the surface, the Employee Free Choice Act could work to make campus organizing much easier. If a majority of employees signed union cards, the NLRB would be required to certify the union. There would be no need for employees to vote in a secret ballot. With respect to part-time college faculty, in states were the unionization of part-time employees was legal, such a change could lead to sweeping changes in the numbers of part-time faculty represented by collective bargaining units. To me, this is a double-edged sword simply due to the abysmal track records of the current education unions in their efforts to secure equitable pay and working conditions for part-time faculty union members over the course of the past 35 years.

  As a faculty member organized under the auspices of the Employee Free Choice Act, I could find myself represented by a national union whose leaders are hell bent for leather to reduce the numbers of part-time nation-wide. Eradication of exploited workers doesn’t count, in my book, as bettering their working conditions. Worse still, I could find myself in an agency shop. I actually taught at a school whose faculty union had negotiated agency shop dues payments. It was a waste of my money; the union leaders negotiated absolutely nothing for the part-time faculty during the years I taught at the school. Part-time faculty in unified locals all over the country routinely see their union leaders negotiate contracts that, for instance, include “equal percentage raises.” Contracts like this put the locals’ part-time faculty squarely into the category of second-class citizens. The Employee Free Choice Act could help unscrupulous union leaders simply accrete part-time faculty into existing locals, where the part-timers would pay dues for sub-standard or non-existent representation.

  As a part of my January 2009 prognostications, I wrote that “Obama will not be able to get the Employee Free Choice Act passed.” Now that several influential senators have come out against the latest incarnation of the legislation proposed in March 2009, it looks as though part-time faculty may dodge the bullet that is the application of the Employee Free Choice Act within higher education.

  Tags: AAUP, AFT, Employee Free Choice Act, NLRB, part-time faculty

• AFT Prez Randi Weingarten Solves Exploitation of, Well, Everyone

  4 Comments
  21 Apr 2009 /  AFT, organizing, part-time faculty, unions
  Which of these sentences was spoken by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten at the recent annual conference of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining? See if you can guess.

  1.  ”Hiring WOMEN isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by FEMALE workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.”

  2.  Hiring BLACKS isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by BLACK workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.”

  3.  Hiring ASIANS isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by ASIAN workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.”

  4.  Hiring MEN isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by MALE workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.” (Oops, sorry. This is actually a reality so far as tenured faculty positions and college presidencies are concerned.)  

  5.  Hiring GAYS isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by GAY workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.”

  6.  Hiring ADJUNCTS isn’t a bad thing, she said, but “we’ve reached the point where colleges are basically staffed by CONTINGENT workers. We’ve got to think about what to do to change the balance.” 

  If you guessed 1, you’re absolutely correct. Randi Weingarten thinks there are too many women in higher education. Wait. Or was it number 2? She probably wouldn’t have a problem with people thinking she’d said there are too many blacks in higher education, right? Randi Weingarten would have no problem announcing to the press that the best way to improve pay and working conditions for blacks and women in higher education is to get rid of the blacks and women.

  Oh, alright. I’ll tell you what she really said. You know already. It’s number 6. The AFT President’s solution to the “adjunct problem,” her strategy to resolve long-standing industry-wide pay inequities and abysmal working conditions is to, yes, get rid of the adjuncts. 

  AFT has 250 locals at colleges and universities in the U.S. and represents approximately 50,000 part-time faculty. According to Larry Gold, director of the AFT’s higher education division, 140 of those locals are unified and serve both full-time and part-time faculty. In response to suggestions that there are “problems” with these unified locals representing the interests of their part-time members Gold said, “He was not surprised by problems that crop up….” He went on to conclude that, “There are a whole lot of things that need to be worked out.”

  Evidently, some of the issues that need to be “worked out” are at AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C.

  Tags: American Federation of Teachers, higher education, Larry Gold, National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining, Randi Weingarten

• As The Chickens Come Home to, Well, Obfuscate

  1 Comment
  03 Mar 2009 /  contracts, organizing, part-time faculty, politics, teaching, unions
  Out West where the buffalo roam, the antelope play and the Humvees hum down Highway 101, there’s a slaughter going on. Had anyone bothered to ask me, I would have told you that it was going to happen sooner or later. I actually did, when I wrote about it in November 2008 here. I wrote that the rifles were pointed squarely at (who else?) part-time faculty.

  In the February 26th issue of the Daily Aztec—and who doesn’t love a newspaper named for an ancient people who practiced human sacrifice?—Carole Kennedy, Ph.D., the president of the San Diego State University chapter of the California Faculty Association (CFA), is quoted as saying, “The state feels part-time faculty are expendable…and…CSU has laid off lecturers….” 

  The state feels the CSU part-timers are expendable? Of course the state feels part-time faculty employed on the CSU campuses are expendable. The CFA union leaders told them the part-time faculty were expendable. Hell, CFA leaders practically pinned “you’re expendable, bub” signs on the back of every single part-time lecturer employed in the CSU system. How’d they do that, you ask? Why, by bargaining a labor agreement that contains language that encourages state officials to treat part-time faculty as though they were expendable. In times of trouble, the CFA’s contract calls for part-time faculty to be dismissed first, before full-time temporary lecturers and, to be sure, before full-time regular faculty. And now, Carole Kennedy, Ph.D., associate professor and president of the San Diego State University CFA, tells us that the state feels part-time faculty are expendable, and the state is high-handed and haughty to think so. 

  Evidently, when the state treats part-time faculty as though they are expendable, it’s misguided and wrong, but when the union does it, it’s “representation” wrapped up in pretty paper and topped with a frilly bow, and CFA staff and their cheerleaders tell us that lecturers in the CSU system enjoy one of the best union contracts on three legs. AAUP activist Marc Bousquet lauds the CFA contract in a Chronicle of Higher Education piece posted on (I couldn’t make this stuff up if I wanted to) April 1, 2008. In a 2002 interview Bousquet did with AAUP President Cary Nelson, they discuss the CFA contract that “has won greater job security for the non-tenure track lecturers…” Nelson replies, “There is often genuine solidarity there between union activists who are full time and part time. The California Faculty Association has joined the part timers and full timers in cheerful and creative activism.”

  Well, until the budget cuts hit the fan, and then it’s every tenure-line faculty member for him or herself, and the part-time lecturer brothers and sisters in cheerful and creative solidarity are expendable. In California, Oregon, and Washington state, where over 60,000 part-timers are unionized, part-timers are losing their jobs hand over fist, and their union representatives are obfuscating, or worse still, stone-faced and silent in the face of what can only be described as tremendous personal loss. Even if these union leaders are helpless (thanks to decades of what can only be described as shabby representation) to stop the layoffs and firings, they can at least be honest about the fact that in their states, and thanks to their contracts, part-time faculty are being forced to bear the brunt of the budget cuts imposed by state legislators.

  In California, I wish that Lillian Taiz, president of the CFA, would tell the truth. I wish she would acknowledge the slaughter of her part-time lecturers, and come clean and confess that the contract her union negotiated on behalf of 12,000 lecturers has placed part-timers and their jobs in the direct line of fire. I wish she would give interviews and talk about exactly how many of her 12,000 lecturers have lost their jobs, and how the loss of those lecturers has impacted the quality of education on CSU’s campuses, where 10,000 students have been denied admissions and class sizes have ballooned.

  In short, I wish Lillian Taiz, and her counterparts in Washington and Oregon, would stop obfuscating.

  Tags: Carole Kennedy, Cary Nelson, CFA, CSU, Lillian Taiz, Marc Bousquet, San Diego State University

• Cincinnati PTers Glad to See the Back of Nancy Zimpher

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  09 Feb 2009 /  AAUP, AFT, administrators, contracts, organizing, part-time faculty
  In the February 3rd edition of The New York Times, I read that Dr. Nancy Zimpher, president of the University of Cincinnati since 2003, is heading out east to head the SUNY system. In that job, she’ll oversee some 8,000 part-time faculty employed throughout the 64-campus SUNY system. The SUNY faculty union is an AFT affiliate. In the Times piece, several sources lauded Zimpher’s financial savvy. In the six years she headed the U of C, she helped dig the institution out of a mountain of debt. Zimpher is the woman who forced out the U of C’s popular basketball coach, Bob Higgins, in 2005. She did so after declaring to a room full of reporters and television cameras that “Character counts.”

  The U of C’s AAUP chapter president Russel Durst had some kisses and hugs for President Zimpher: “She has brought in a great team and is doing her best to improve the financial situation of the university.” The AAUP represents the full-time faculty at U of C. 

  All in all, it would appear as though the SUNY board were getting a 62-year-old spitfire of a woman to lead their half a million students and 21,000 faculty—someone who can fish their collective fannies out of the huge fire that’s coming in the form of budget cuts facing the system over the course of the next year. There are, however, about 1,000 people at the University of Cincinnati who are not going to be sorry when Nancy Zimpher packs her little bags and heads off to New York. 

  On June 7, 2004, 1,000 part-time faculty sent President Zimpher a letter asking her to recognize their union, an AFT affiliate. Adjunct Advocate writer Mark Drozdowski wrote that, “U of C officials have refused to recognize the AFA’s collective efforts, because they don’t have to. Ohio stands alone as the only state that guarantees bargaining rights to full-time faculty, but not to part-timers or graduate assistants. The state’s laws do, however, give institutions ‘permissive authority’ to recognize unions and adjunct faculty, but University of Cincinnati officials haven’t taken advantage of the loophole.” Adjunct Advocate published pieces about the U of C part-timers’ union, the AFA, here and here. Nancy L. Zimpher dug the University of Cincinnati out of debt in part by having half of the courses there staffed by adjuncts, who earn $17,000 for teaching a full load ($1,700 per course).

  For the past six years, the same team praised by AAUP president Russell Durst, has stiff-armed 1,000 part-time faculty and saved tens of millions of dollars on salary and benefits by refusing to recognize the AFA’s right to bargain collectively. I can hardly wait to see what Nancy Zimpher (to whom “character counts” when it comes to other people, of course) will do to the SUNY union. I am also going to be very interested to see what the SUNY union will do to its 8,000 part-time faculty members’ bargaining priorities when President Zimpher negotiates the next union contract. Somehow, the word “screwed” comes immediately to mind, as does the phrase, “Sold down the river.” 

  SUNY part-timers should be quaking in their boots at the thought of Nancy Zimpher’s representatives sitting across from union negotiators at the table in 2011. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to think she’s going to bring to her new job the same collegiality and good will she showed toward the part-time faculty at the University of Cincinnati. Meanwhile, back on the banks of the Ohio River, in Cincinnati, AFA leaders could, possibly, find themselves across the bargaining table from a new President to whom character really does count.

  Tags: AAUP, AFA, AFT, Nancy Zimpher, Russell Durst, SUNY, University of Cincinnati

• Why Susan Titus is Totally Phat

  1 Comment
  27 Jan 2009 /  AAUP, AFT, NEA, organizing, part-time faculty, unions
  Surf the net to the web pages of part-time faculty unions affiliated with any of the Big Three labor unions and look at the posted budgets. Hell, surf on over to the AFT, NEA and AAUP national office web pages for a look at the budgets of the national offices. I’ll stop smirking now and tell you that finding the budget of most part-time faculty education unions in this great country of ours will take, at minimum, a phone call to the union’s office. Posting such materials online, where anyone could, well, see them just isn’t the way things are done.

  Until now. Right there, bold as brass and twice as easy to download and read in PDF format, is the budget of Wayne State University’s Union of Part-Time Faculty. The 1,000 member AFT affiliate, led by part-timer Susan Titus, defines fiscal transparency for every other education union affiliate in the country that doesn’t post its budget online. Adjunct Advocate profiled Titus here. 

  Soooooooooo…..why the overall reticence on the part of affiliates to share budget information readily? After all, it was NEA President Reg Weaver in a Press Release who said, “NEA and its affiliates are among the most open and democratically run organizations in the country. We keep our members fully informed about our programs, budgets, and policies.”

  That’s nice. However, there are different levels of “keeping people informed,” and Reg Weaver’s NEA sued the United States Department of Labor on behalf of 33 state affiliates to keep from having to show the Full Financial Monty to members (and anyone else who could find the group’s LM-2 financial disclosures on the DOL web site). The NEA affiliate leaders and NEA officials objected to a finding by the Department of Labor that the 33 NEA affiliates were governed by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. The Act requires labor organizations to file detailed financial reports on income and expenses. NEA officials claimed that  the Labor Department’s ruling was “unfair” and was “motivated by an ill-will toward unions in general, and NEA and its affiliates in particular.” 

  As I have written before, the LM-2 reports of the AFT, NEA and AAUP national offices make for some riveting reading. So does the budget of the fledgling Wayne State University Part-Time Faculty Union. A look at the “Budget Summary,” and one sees the largest line item expense is for “Dues.” Out of a total $167,000 2008-2009 budget, the part-timers are paying over $78,000 per year in per capita “dues,” to AFT-Michigan, the AFT national office, the Michigan AFL-CIO and Detroit AFL-CIO. WSU union leaders point out in the “Budget Narrative,” that the AFT paid for the union’s certification campaign and has paid the union’s “bills,” for the past 18 months.

  A look at the AFT’s LM-2 disclosures over the period during which Wayne State University’s part-timers were organized reveals the yearly salary of the AFT organizer who worked part-time on the Wayne State campaign, as well as the other expenses AFT incurred while organizing the 1,000 part-timers. The part-timers at Wayne State University will repay AFT for those expenses in less than three years. After that, the $78,000 per year in “dues” that will go to AFT and the AFL-CIO on the state and national levels will be gravy for the AFT to do with what it pleases.

  It is no small wonder, then, that national union leaders have been quoted as saying part-time faculty are simply incapable of creating a new national union to represent themselves. Using the Wayne State budget as a model, a national Adjunct Faculty Union United, with 20,000 members would generate, perhaps, close to $2 million in “dues” each year. There are, currently, 700,000 faculty off the tenure track. AFT represents 60,000 of them, AAUP 3,500 and the NEA 15,000 part-time faculty members. And what if a national part-timers’ union grabbed for their members a significantly larger piece of the faculty compensation pie nation-wide? The revenue potential for such a union increases exponentially. 

  In the meantime, a tip o’ the cap goes out to Susan Titus and her union colleagues at Wayne State University for doing voluntarily what it took a ruling by a U.S. District Court to get the president of the NEA to do (grumbling to the Press all the way). In Titus’s budget, there is $45,000 for staff, $165 for bank fees and $250 for bookkeeping.

  Most will read that financial information, shrug and say, “Who gives a rat’s bahookie?” Think about this: Over the past 8 years, the NEA and AFT national offices have taken in and spent close to $1 billion dollars on overhead and staff salaries. They’ve spent nowhere near that much organizing new affiliates, such as the one at Wayne State. Reading the budgets allows us all to see right past the protestations and glad-handing of national union leaders who profess their love for the part-timers, and their desire to “help.” Exploited adjuncts need neither adoration nor promises of support. They need to be organized and bargain aggressively for salary increases.

  As for Susan Titus, all it takes it a quick look at her organization’s finances to see that she’s walking the walk and talking the talk.

  Tags: AFL-CIO, AFT, Department of Labor, LM-2, NEA, Reg Weaver, Susan Titus, Wayne State University

• I Couldn’t Have Said it Better Myself

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  05 Jan 2009 /  AAUP, AFT, NEA, conferences, organizing, part-time faculty, unions
  You know how I hate just linking to someone else’s writing. It’s, well, so unoriginal.

  However, in today’s edition of InsideHigherEd.com, Greg Zobel has an essay titled “The Adjuncts’ Mandate.” Zobel writes:

  “To generate change, adjuncts need to alter one basic condition. Adjuncts need to become more involved with their own destiny. Until adjuncts speak up for themselves, nobody else can or will take care of their interests. Others may attempt to solve our problems for us, but that is like receiving medical care without telling the doctor what your symptoms are and withholding any lifestyle changes or accidents you may have recently experienced. Adjuncts must lead their own labor reform movement. We need our own national movement separate from the AAUP, AFT, and NEA. ”

  Amen. I couldn’t agree more, and I couldn’t have said it better than GZ. So who’s gonna lead the labor reform movement? Where’s the adjunct Martin Luther?

  Here’s a sad fact. There was only one flippant, crummy comment at the bottom of Zobel’s piece as of 10:24 a.m. 

  Tags: AAUP, AFT, Greg Zobel, labor reform, NEA

• Let’s Talk Turkey (After Thanksgiving)

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  04 Dec 2008 /  AAUP, AFT, FACE, NEA, contracts, organizing, part-time faculty, research, unions
  The AFT recently came out with a new study that concludes part-time faculty are teaching a majority of the courses offered at public colleges and universities in the U.S. I suppose the surprise, then, has to do with the use of part-time faculty at 4-year institutions. We all know that community colleges have been loaded down with part-time faculty for at least two decades. Now the kicker: the AFT’s study is titled “Reversing Course: The Troubled State of Academic Staffing and a Path Forward.”

  Maybe I’m so wrong that when I re-read this a decade hence, I will look back at my own naivete and chuckle. However, AFT higher education leaders (right along with the AAUP’s president Dr. Cary Nelson) are baying at the full moon. Yes, Virginia, adjuncts teach the majority of courses in public colleges in the United States. Yes, my Sweet, temporary faculty now comprise the majority of faculty in the United States. At the moment, 52 percent of college faculty teach part-time and 70 percent of the nation’s 1.2 million college faculty teach off the tenure-track.

  The InsideHigherEd piece I read about the study quotes an AFT usual suspect, Barbara Bowen, president of PSC-CUNY. IHE founder and writer Scott Jaschik needs to consider the sources he uses. Barbara Bowen, and other PSC-CUNY leaders, recently quashed a revolt among its 8,000 part-time members with tactics that included refusing part-time members access to the union’s email list. The part-timers were up in arms over a proposed contract that included the ever-so-popular, yet clearly evil “equal percentage raise.” Oh, and when there was a chance that the AFT’s boondoggle FACE program would be funded by the New York State Assembly (pre-Spitzer’s spin with a call girl), New York State officials who suggested adjunct faculty currently teaching at CUNY be hired for the funded full-time positions, met with “resistance” on the part of PSC-CUNY union officials, as well as the union’s full-time faculty members. 

  Back to the study. So, here’s my observation: the trend of using huge numbers of part-time faculty to teach the majority of courses at public colleges and universities in the United States will never be reversed. First of all, even with the minimal institutional support, non-existent job security and poor supervision they’re afforded part-timers they do just as good a job in the classroom as their full-time colleagues. Second of all, the trillions simply don’t exist in our state and federal budgets to reverse the trend. As a result, every dollar the education unions spend on political influence, programs, staff and studies aimed at reversing the trend are being wasted in the name of chuckle-headed policy and poor leadership.

  Well, FACE and union activists might argue that higher education deserves more funding, and with more funding colleges and universities will, yes, funnel millions into hiring more full-time faculty. Sure they will.  If colleges won’t allocate money now to the hiring of more full-time, tenure-stream faculty, what evidence do we have that just giving them more money will result in a reversal of the current staffing trends? In 2006, states spent a total of $191 billion dollars to enroll a scant 5.9 percent of our country’s adult population. The majority of those people were taught by part-timers and taught very competently, thank you very much.

  With significantly more money at their disposal, there’s scant evidence to lead us to conclude that college administrators would spend it any differently than they do at the moment. This is what makes the notion of “reversing” the staffing trends in higher education wrong-headed. 

  So, where should the AFT, AAUP and NEA be plowing their tens of millions of dollars in higher education money? They ought to plow it into actually organizing temporary faculty. The education unions ought to work to legislate pro-rata pay and benefits for temporary college faculty through a national (ideally) platform. Union leaders should start tomorrow making sure that their locals leaders stop screwing their part-time faculty members by negotiating “equal percentage” raises, and by classifying full-time faculty who teach overload as part-time faculty.

  When, oh, when will the AAUP, AFT and NEA make the institutional support of part-time faculty a national priority? I predict it will happen sometime in the next decade after FACE falls flat on its rear-end.

  Tags: AAUP, AFT, FACE, NEA, staffing

• Huzzah for Adjuncts in Maryland

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  11 Jun 2008 /  organizing, unions
  According to this piece posted to the Gazette.Net web site, 1,075 part-time faculty at Montgomery College voted to affiliate with the SEIU on June 3rd. The group is the first and only group of college faculty teaching at a public college in the state of Maryland to unionize. Union leaders chose to affiliate with SEIU over AFT, NEA and AAUP on advice from colleagues at George Washington University, who spent seven years organizing 1,000 part-timers there.

  In the AdjunctNation.com Podcast Interview with Kip Lornell, part-time faculty and union organizer from George Washington University’s part-time faculty union, he tells a revealing tale of shopping his 1,000 member group to AFT and AAUP, and coming away frustrated and disappointed.

  Congratulations to the part-timers at Montgomery College. Let’s hope the group and college officials bargain a first contract smoothly.

  Tags: AAUP, AFT, Montgomery College, SEIU

• I Dreamt I Died and Went to….Well…Canada

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  10 Jun 2008 /  Canadian part-timers, adjuncts worldwide, organizing, unions
  Today, the Dalton McGuinty government introduced legislation which would make it legal for all of Ontario’s 12,500 part-time faculty to bargain collectively. Read the press release about the proposed legislation here. In the latest issue of Adjunct Advocate, there is an interview with Mr. Smokey Thomas, President of OPSEU, the union that initiated the organization of Ontario’s part-time faculty. Check out the interview here.

  Tags: OPSEU, organizing, Smokey Thomas

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