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.
