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September 2, 2014

St. Louis Post Dispatch Editorial: Adjuncts unite for better education

September 2, 2014 | By |

Following up on last week’s feature story in the Post-Dispatch, the newspaper’s editorial board took a stand with adjunct faculty in the Labor Day edition. They wrote:

Despite lip service to the importance of attaining a college education, the critical need to compete with highly educated students from other countries, the value added to a life when educational goals are attained, the corporatization of higher ed demands the second-class citizenship of adjunct professors.
Many of these second-tier teachers are first-class educators being forced to teach without tools. They don’t have offices so can’t meet with students, unless they want to gather behind the trunks of their cars, which generally serve as their filing cabinets.
Adjuncts are fighting back. On this Labor Day, their efforts should be heralded as they take a page from the annals of the working poor of earlier generations and other industries. The adjuncts are organizing.
Part-time and contingent faculty are working together in St. Louis to reverse trends that have lead to a marginalized workforce by forming unions. Stay tuned for more on campaigns in the St. Louis metro area this fall.
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August 25, 2014

University of the District of Columbia Part-Time Faculty Vote to Join Majority of DC Adjuncts in SEIU

August 25, 2014 | By |

Adjunct faculty at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) have voted to join their colleagues at Georgetown, Howard, George Washington and American universities and form a union in SEIU Local 500. A vast majority voted in favor of forming a union, joining a rapidly growing national union movement to address the crisis in higher education and the troubling trend toward a marginalized teaching faculty.

Seventy-five percent of adjunct faculty in Washington, DC are now united in SEIU Local 500. Professor Juan Laster, a UDC adjunct, said, “We worked very hard for this victory, but this is only the first step. I am looking forward to working with the administration on a first contract that respects our work as educators and faculty and as a key part of the UDC community. I am also proud to be joining Howard University as the second HBCU to have a union for part-time faculty.”

Adjunct faculty at UDC are already working on issues to discuss during first contract negotiations. Workplace conditions in higher education have quickly and dramatically changed for the people responsible for the core mission of instruction in our colleges and universities. Contingent faculty are now a majority of college and university faculty, and through their union contracts, adjunct faculty are already winning better pay, job security and access to professional development.

Throughout the Washington, DC area and across the country adjunct faculty continue to fight to address the crisis in higher education: a marginalized teaching faculty, administrative bloat, quickly rising tuition, and record levels of student debt. Thousands of adjunct and contingent workers have joined SEIU/Adjunct Action in the last year.

Workers at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York and the California College of the Arts are set to vote to form their union in early September, following in the footsteps of faculty at a dozen other schools, including the Maryland Institute College of Art, Northeastern University, Hamline University, San Francisco Art Institute, Georgetown, Howard University and Mills College, all of whom have joined SEIU/Adjunct Action since May 2013.

In addition to five schools in Washington, SEIU Local 500 represents adjunct faculty at Montgomery College and the Maryland Institute College of Art.

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August 25, 2014

St. Louis Adjunct Organizing Featured in STL Post Dispatch

August 25, 2014 | By |

Adjunct faculty are ramping up efforts to form unions and solve the crisis in higher education this semester. And on Sunday, was front page news In the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

In the feature story, Andrew Nelson and Gail Brody share their story and why they are forming unions at campuses in the St. Louis area.

‘Nelson gets paid about $2,500 a semester for every three-credit course he teaches. So he picks up as many courses as he can, splitting his time between two universities to make ends meet.
But, he said, it’s not just about money.
“’The most important thing is that we have no input into the departments we work in. We have no say on textbooks, either,” he said. “So other people determine what we are going to teach and how we are going to teach it.’”
Read the rest of the story here.

Landslide victory for Antioch University Seattle faculty

July 24, 2014 | By |

In a resounding victory, Antioch University Seattle faculty have voted to form a union, joining a rapidly growing national movement to address the crisis in higher education and the troubling trend toward a marginalized teaching faculty.

All faculty stood together to overwhelmingly support a union by voting 85 to 14 to join SEIU Local 925. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) counted the votes for the all-mail ballot election on Wednesday.

The win is a 86 percent vote in favor of forming a union – a landslide victory for the faculty and the entire Antioch Seattle community.

“Time for celebration!” said core faculty member Alex Suarez. “Congratulations to the faculty and to everyone at Antioch University Seattle. We have taken an important step towards a more balanced dialogue. The faculty voices now have a better chance of being heard and given the respect and authority our experience merits. In a world where balance and dialogue are so necessary, we are better able to foster them. Where else can wisdom come from?”

Read the rest of the story at ACT Washington

The House of Representatives Sheds Light on Adjunct Working Conditions

July 23, 2014 | By |


On July 23, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Strengthening Transparency in Higher Education Act,” marking an important step toward bringing transparency to our higher education system. The bill will help millions of prospective and current college students make well-informed decisions about enrolling and attending college. It will also require universities to reveal important information about the working conditions of adjunct faculty, who are now the majority of faculty in higher education.

“This important legislation gives students, faculty, lawmakers and the public more information about what’s happening in higher education,” said SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry. “Over the past year, adjunct faculty have joined together to raise standards in our profession and it’s good to see Congress is interested in shining a spotlight on trends in higher education that have marginalized contingent and part-time faculty.”

SEIU helped to make sure that the “Strengthening Transparency in Higher Education Act” will also allow students and families to gain better information about academic working conditions. It requires institutions of higher education to report the ratio of the number of courses taught by part-time instructors and full-time instructors as well as the mean and median years of employment of their part-time instructors.

Andrew Nelson teaches English at Lindenwood University and East Central College in the St. Louis area. He said,“As an adjunct professor who has taught six years at the university and community college level, I have always placed student success at the top of my education philosophy; accordingly, I am pleased to see that HR 4983 is designed to assist students in pursuit of realizing their educational goals. I am also happy to see legislation that acknowledges the troubling trends in faculty working conditions nationally.Hopefully this bill is a step toward improving the working conditions of millions of adjuncts like myself.”

Read more about the bill and implications for part-time faculty at the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Star Tribune Adjunct OpEd: Why Adjunct Professors are Unionizing

July 2, 2014 | By |

Hamline University Contingent Faculty Member Swati Avasthi wrote a moving piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the crisis in higher education, and how forming a union is a part of rebuilding the American Dream. She writes…

“I grew up a beneficiary of the American dream. My grandfather in India worked two jobs, and despite the family’s poverty, got my father through medical school. My parents, both doctors, came to the United States with three children and $8 in their pockets. They completed their medical training, found jobs and saved well. As a result, they gave us each a college education and a lesson: study hard, work hard and you can do better for the next generation — the American dream.
Even though I am a highly educated professor at a prestigious university who receives excellent evaluations, and even though I’ve published two critically acclaimed books (which matters in the publish-or-perish culture), I am finding that dream increasingly distant. I worry constantly about how to meet the ever-increasing cost of college for my own children.
Why? Because I’m an adjunct professor. And I’m not alone.”

 

Read the entire piece at the Star Tribune.

 

Hamline University Adjuncts Vote Overwhelmingly to Join SEIU

June 20, 2014 | By |

Hamline University adjuncts have voted overwhelmingly to join part-time faculty at schools across the country in SEIU/Adjunct Action.The victory builds momentum for the upcoming vote at the University of St. Thomas and marks the first contingent faculty vote at a private school in Minnesota as adjuncts join the rapidly growing national union movement.

Hamline adjuncts will join SEIU Local 284 as part of the Adjunct Action campaign. The margin of victory was huge — 72% voted yes.

David Weiss is an adjunct faculty in the Religion department at Hamline and spoke about why the win reflects a victory for the entire Hamline community. He said, “This is a great day for faculty, students, and the whole Hamline community. It was clear in this campaign that for adjuncts in Minnesota, our time is now. By coming together to address the low pay and lack of benefits and stability for adjunct faculty, we are taking steps to strengthen all of higher education for students and faculty alike. I’m confident that our success today will help empower other workers, including adjunct faculty like ourselves at schools like St. Thomas, to change working and learning conditions in higher education.”

Jennifer Beckham teaches in the English department and spoke about the great opportunity this provides Hamline. She said, “We sent a letter to Provost Jensen expressing our interest in building a productive relationship that reflects our shared value in making Hamline a great place for faculty and students. Adjuncts have been energized by the support of tenured faculty, students, alumni, and community supporters throughout this process, and we look forward to continuing this important work.”

Minnesota adjuncts are joining a fast-growing union movement, as adjuncts come together to take on this crisis in higher education that has turned what was once a good middle-class profession into a low-wage, no-benefits job without any job security from semester to semester. Now their vision is to take this work a step further – to unite adjunct faculty market wide, and across the country – because this crisis in higher education will not be solved one school at a time.

Read more about the victory in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minnesota Public Radio

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June 13, 2014

Boston Adjuncts Join other Low Wage Workers for Huge Rally to Demand a Raise for Everyone

June 13, 2014 | By |

Yesterday, over 1,000 low-wage workers, SEIU members and allies rallied and marched in the Bay State’s 3 biggest cities — Boston, Worcester and Springfield — to call for $15/hour, safe working conditions, and the right to organize. In Boston, the day of action featured speakers from fast-food workers to home-care workers to taxi drivers to certified nursing assistants to adjunct faculty.

Boston University adjunct faculty member Maureen Sullivan spoke at the rally about all working people’s common cause. She said:


“We as a nation, as a global society, cannot continue treating members of the workforce who feed and nurture and educate the next generation as pariahs. We need to put money in the hands of all working people who both create value and who purchase the goods and services that drive real economic growth.

That is why I am here: to express both my outrage at the shabby treatment of the Commonwealth’s hardest-working teachers and educators, and to be part of the solution. The solution, here and now, is to organize ourselves into an adjunct faculty labor union with strength, resilience, determination, and above all, the highest ethical and cultural values which we already instill in our students.

We also stand with brave people who work at restaurants, hospitals, home care and other fields, who work hard and can’t get by on low wages. Thank you for taking risks by speaking out today. We may be from different walks of life but we are all standing up and saying together, it’s time to make sure our economy works for everyone again.”



More coverage of the Low-Wage Worker Day of Action can be found in the Boston Globe, this Globe column and the this Boston Business Journal.

Read more about the coalition and action at: http://wageaction.org/

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June 9, 2014

SEIU Members Join President Obama for Executive Action on Student Debt

June 9, 2014 | By |

One trillion in student debt.


It’s a staggering amount, and it’s growing. And it’s not just the students sitting in the classroom who have growing levels of debts: adjuncts professors often carry large amount of student debt. Because of their contingent position, adjuncts are squeezed, struggling to get by and without access to some of the federal programs designed to manage and forgive debt.


Adjunct Action is working with a coalition of partners to bring the issue of student debt to the forefront of the conversation about the future of higher education.

Today, SEIU members from Local 500 and Local 1000 joined President Obama as he announced new executive actions to further lift the burden of crushing student loan debt, including a Presidential Memorandum that will allow IMG_2426an additional 5 million borrowers with federal student loans to cap their monthly payments at 10 percent of their income.

If you are struggling with student debt, tell us your story.

SEIU/Adjunct Action members are working to get the word out about repayment options and federal student aid resources that are available to them. We are also joining together to fight for reform and changes in higher education so that everyone can pursue their dreams, without crushing student debt.

 

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June 5, 2014

Seattle University Contingent Faculty Declare Victory in Ongoing Fight to Form a Union, Antioch University Votes in July

June 5, 2014 | By |

Seattle University contingent faculty are confident of victory in their union campaign to join thousands of non-tenure track faculty nationwide in a rapidly growing movement, despite roadblocks by University administration that prevented a vote count on Tuesday.

“We are encouraged by the strong support and the great turnout among adjunct and contingent faculty, and we are very confident that we won the vote,” said SU contingent faculty member Louisa Edgerly.

Voting ended on June 2, and ballots have been impounded pending a decision on SU administration’s appeal to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C. SEIU Local 925, the contingent faculty union, will file a special appeal to the NLRB for the ballots to be counted.

“We ask our administration to drop their appeal, respect the democratic process, and allow the votes to be counted. We are committed to work towards success, and we will continue our organizing effort as long as it takes. We look forward to getting to the bargaining table with the administration, and establishing an effective dialogue with Seattle University,” said Edgerly.

Over 700 students, alumni and faculty have demanded that SU administration respect the right of contingent faculty to vote on forming a union. The Student Government of Seattle University also released a statement asking that the appeal be dropped.

Even with no guarantee of having a job the next semester, adjunct and contingent faculty are bravely speaking out in unprecedented ways – forming unions from coast to coast, taking action online and offline, and uniting across employers and cities to raise standards for all educators, improve the quality of education, and win the good jobs that will get our economy moving again.

The next contingent faculty union election in Seattle will be at Antioch University. Ballots will be mailed out July 7 and are due back by July 23. Antioch University Seattle faculty member Alex Suarez, said, “I am delighted that Antioch University Seattle, following its longstanding tradition of social justice, is getting ready to vote for unionization. Our union will ensure that the voice of the faculty is clearly heard and attended to within the university. Through our union, my colleagues and I will be empowered to improve the conditions that foster learning and development in students and quality of life for all. I hope everyone realizes how good this can be for everyone in Academia. These are such exciting times!”

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