Part-Time Harper Faculty Seek a Union
Harper College’s part-time teachers are making another push to unionize, a decade after the last effort failed.
If they organize, they will be following in the footsteps of the adjunct faculty at other Illinois colleges, such as Oakton and Elgin community colleges and College of DuPage, as well as Roosevelt University.
The part-timers behind Harper’s latest push say they want the support of a collective bargaining unit to get higher pay, better working conditions and more job security.
Harper employs about 500 part-time faculty and about 200 full-time teachers.
Harper part-time faculty and the Illinois Education Association tried to bring in a union about 10 years ago, but Harper won an appellate court judgment over who was eligible to vote on creating the bargaining unit. The effort died.
Recently, however, the requirements have been relaxed, and teachers who teach as little as three credit hours per semester are now eligible to vote.
Now Harper officials say they’re worried that another collective bargaining unit could mean higher labor costs. The college has four unions already, and the full-time faculty union struck last fall over a dispute about compensation and health care benefits.
“(Part-time teachers) are workers in Illinois, and they have right to unionize,” said Harper director of communications Phil Burdick. “If there is a substantial increase, it’s going to cost taxpayers more money. It is going to put more pressure on a budget that’s already hurting.”
For the 2003-2004 school year, part-time teachers at Harper earn between $1,800 and $2,100 for a three-credit class. The college pays about $6,000 per three-credit class to full-time teachers.
This fall, Harper is offering 2,200 credit classes, nearly half taught by adjunct teachers. By using part-time faculty Harper saves about $8.8 million over the fall and spring semesters, Burdick said.
“How much of that savings we would have to give up if (part-time faculty) are unionized? That’s hard to say,” Burdick said.
Tom Suhrbur of the IEA, which bargains for part-time teachers at Roosevelt, Oakton and COD, said part-time pay at Roosevelt jumped more than 60 percent the first year of the contract.
Harper part-time faculty members, who are talking with the IEA, say they realize they won’t be paid the same as the full-time faculty, but they want to narrow the gap.
“We want some kind of pay equity,” said Frank Brooks, a part-time political science teacher at Harper and Roosevelt. Brooks is a negotiator for the part-time faculty union at Roosevelt.
Harper officials like the flexibility part-time teachers offer in scheduling, which helps them add classes at the last minute if registration increases.
“I think their flexibility is our insecurity,” Brooks said. “If we organize, they have to plan a little better.”
Brooks added the part-timers don’t always get much notice when classes are added or dropped. At Oakton, where part-time teachers unionized nearly 20 years ago, and Roosevelt, adjunct teachers are compensated if their classes are canceled close to the start date.
By and large, colleges do not contribute to benefits plans for part-timers, but some schools, like ECC, offer the opportunity for part-timers to at least buy into a health care plan.
ECC also offers some professional development money to adjunct teachers. Oakton includes part-timers in their retirement system.
“We can’t even buy into the health insurance. There is no guarantee of being hired back,” said Larry Price, a part-time art instructor at Harper.
Price said the Cook County College Teachers Union Local 1600, which represents Harper’s full-time faculty, also has approached part-time teachers. Local 1600 officials did not return calls Thursday.
Brooks said there may be a vote as early as this fall.
