Long-Time Companion: Rutgers PTL Marks 13 Years

by Peter Miller WHEN ADJUNCT FACULTY organize unions, do all their problems fade into the past? Not necessarily, since adjuncts face huge obstacles from the outset. Collective bargaining might one day help adjuncts gain academic rights, but those can seem like pie in the sky when basic human rights need to be addressed first. The AAUP's part-time lecturer (PTL) union at Rutgers University offers a good example of how far a group can come, but still have so far to go. The PTL union at Rutgers's three campuses has seen its share of the good and the bad, and its progress in improving conditions for part-time adjuncts shows how hard the struggle can be. In an overwhelming 1988 vote, part-time lecturers at Rutgers selected the PTL chapter of the AAUP to be their collective bargaining agent. While a good deal has changed since then, many conditions remain bad for Rutgers teachers. Consider, for instance, job security, which remains completely at the discretion of the department until a six-year probationary period expires. At that point, a "senior" part-time lecturer gains hiring preference over less senior lecturers. Aside from this provision, part-time lecturers are "at-will employees," like most workers in America, and can be replaced for any reason or no reason at all, even with their union contract. Starting salaries for teaching the equivalent of four courses per semester stay below the twenty thousand dollar mark until 2002, the end of the current contract. Retirement and health benefits are still off on the horizon. Academic freedom means little to someone without job security, and it can be hard to even care about representation in an academic senate where administrators outnumber tenure-line faculty. Is it possible with such an array of deficits that a union has actually improved anything for adjuncts? The answer appears to be an enthusiastic "yes!" "I was thrilled when I found out there was a union," says Ellen Adesso, a part-time lecturer in accounting and the treasurer for the union. "As an adjunct, they show you your classroom, and they leave you there out on a skinny branch, all by yourself. With a union, when you have a question about students, university policy, all kinds of things, you have someone to call." Economics lecturer Matthew Fung also worked full-time as an economist in the private sector. While Fung says he wasn't always aware of what the union was doing during his six years at Rutgers, he joined anyway. "I think it was doing some things to make the administration see that the adjunct faculty were not enjoying some important benefits that full-time professors were," says Fung, who recently traded in both his jobs for a one-year visiting professorship elsewhere. Aside from such "bread and butter" issues, community and respect are widely repeated benefits of forming a union, particularly among workers who come to campus only a couple days each week to perform the core function of a university and then, for whatever reason, disappear from campus. Irregular schedules and lack of visibility can create problems with the full-timers who run the show. "I'm a professional. I'm not used to being treated like someone who doesn't matter," continues Adesso whose full-time job is outside of education. "Corporate America would never treat us this way. I realize that's not a very good yardstick, but the union has helped make things better. It's at least provided us with information." In fact, the union has provided a good deal more, although most of the improvements fall into the category of "I can't believe the university didn't already do that." For instance, the contract ensures that part-time lecturers receive written notices of their appointments, stating their title, salary, appointment period, number of students to expect in their classes and other terms and conditions of their jobs. The contract also states that departments must provide adequate classroom space, space for office hours, a departmental mailbox, and written notice of policy changes that affect part-time lecturers. Those provisions alone could mean the world to some adjuncts. But Karen Thompson, a part-time lecturer at Rutgers and the staff representative for the union, notes that a different, often overlooked contract provision offers far more to part-time lecturers. "The backbone of a contract is the grievance procedure," says Thompson. "If you don't have a grievance procedure, you can't protect anything," such as the contract's requirement that Rutgers pay more when classes significantly exceed their projected enrollment. "People get the money!" Thompson exclaims. Without a contract and a grievance procedure, those lecturers could be left with nothing but large classes, low wages, and sharpened cynicism. "A grievance procedure is difficult to organize people around, but it's actually the most important thing," says Thompson. While many people would be hard pressed to understand why anyone would tolerate the conditions adjuncts accept, academic institutions continue to seek and find cheap contingent labor. At Rutgers, the AAUP PTL contract has offered a framework for significant improvements in wages and the terms and conditions of work for part-time lecturers, and it has offered unquantifiable benefits as well. While all acknowledge that a great deal more work needs to be done with the contract, Ellen Adesso points out a benefit that comes with any organizing: "The union makes you feel like you're not the only one out there banging your head against the wall." And that can mean a lot.