The Bentley election to form a union of adjuncts will be a mail ballot. Ballots will be mailed on September 19th and will be due back on October 3rd. If you have any questions regarding the process please contact Colleen Fitzpatrick at [email protected].
In order to assess collective concerns and priorities in advance of the final election results, please take the bargaining survey: http://action.seiu.org/page/content/bentley-survey/
Past News and Updates:
Invite to Bentley Social on 9/12
To our Bentley Colleagues,
In honor of the start of the new semester, we’ll be holding an Adjunct Union Social to welcome to Bentley’s new and returning adjunct assistant professors. Join us this upcoming Thursday, September 12th for our Adjunct Union Social. This is a great chance for us to get together and build community as we head into our election. Come find out more and participate!
Where: Watch City Brewery, 256 Moody Street, Waltham MA
When: Thursday, September 12th from 5 to 7 p.m.
Appetizers will be served, and there is parking available behind the restaurant. Click here to RSVP: http://action.seiu.org/page/s/bentley-invite
We sincerely hope that you can make it.As adjunct faculty, let’s stand up for the value of what we do!
Letter from the Bentley Organizing Committee to their colleagues, August 2, 2013:
Dear Colleagues of Bentley University Adjunct Faculty
On September 19th, adjunct faculty will begin to vote on whether to form a union. Before then, please consider these questions about our present and future teaching circumstances. While we the undersigned support a vote in favor, we hope you will explore and consider the facts for yourself. We welcome discussion, new committee members, and your involvement on any level.
1) What is our situation as adjuncts?
Legally, we are “contingent” faculty, “employees-at-will.” Current law gives the administration authority to dictate every condition of our work. We constitute approximately 40% of Bentley faculty, but our contracts provide no rights, job security, or health care contributions. Bentley tuition has increased at twice the rate of our pay over the past 10 years, and while we deliver consistent high-quality teaching to our students regardless of these facts, our compensation remains indefensibly inferior to that of full-time assistant professors.
Meanwhile, our Faculty Senator—one person representing 40% of the faculty—can request improvements, but not negotiate for them. The administration occasionally bestows pay increases, but a substantial gap remains between our pay and that of our full-time colleagues, and we still have no benefits or job security. Although Federal labor law protects our activities for change, we lack the power of collective bargaining. If we stand together at this critical moment, however, we will gain the power of collective bargaining when our ballots are counted on October 4.
As discussions continue, consider the bottom line of the administration’s arguments against this Bentley union: “You will be better off if you let us continue to make all the decisions.”
2) What is Adjunct Action?
Adjunct Action is a campaign to unite and empower adjunct faculty in the Boston area, funded by the 2.2 million-member Service Employees International Union. Among these employees, SEIU now represents 75,000 people in public and private higher education, including 23,000 professors, lecturers, librarians and others in the California State system.
With allies from experienced unions like SEIU, adjuncts across the country are acting to establish new relations of equality. At UMass-Lowell, for example, adjunct professors won major improvements in pay, health care and contract rights with help from the UAW. More are moving forward with SEIU at Tufts and Northeastern Universities and Plymouth State in New Hampshire. In the Washington, DC area, adjuncts at Georgetown, George Washington and American Universities and Montgomery Community College have already formed their union with SEIU. Unionization is the best available means to change our situation.
3) How would a Bentley Adjuncts Union work?
On October 4th the National Labor Relations Board will count all votes. With a majority in favor, we will become a union and gain the right to improve our conditions through collective bargaining. Bentley must then negotiate new contracts with adjuncts as legal equals, and your ideas for change will play a direct role as you participate and vote to elect negotiators who represent your views.
We will pay no union dues until we vote to ratify a new contract with the university. In other words, we will pay nothing before we know exactly what we will gain in better contracts, pay, rights, and benefits. Thereafter, we will have seasoned help from SEIU in addressing workplace issues, with dues of 1.6% of our gross pay from Bentley teaching. For example, annual dues on $30,000 AGI (resulting from a raise of $10,000) would be $480, and the dues will be tax-deductible on a Schedule A. Beyond the dues that we consider a sound investment, no one but Bentley adjuncts will be able to create any other obligations.
4) What would equitable treatment for adjuncts really mean?
Forty years ago American schools created “adjunct assistant professors” to respond to a shortage of Ph.D.’s. These positions were intended to be temporary, not a permanent presence in higher education. Decades later, however, adjunct faculty members enrich their institutions while receiving an unlivable wage and no benefits. And since we now constitute 40 to 76% of higher education faculty in America, we no longer have to endure these conditions. Truly fair treatment is feasible, and we look forward to a discussion of specifics for achieving it.
The value that we adjuncts deliver to students at Bentley is equal in every qualitative way to that of other faculty members—from our recognized real-world experience and teaching to our published scholarship and forms of unpaid service. It is time for us to stand up for the value that we add to Bentley: we are the only ones who can do so.
With a strong union of Bentley adjuncts, we will not only improve our working conditions, but also benefit the students, their families, and the university as a whole. And with your vote for fair treatment of adjuncts, Bentley University will move toward genuine national leadership in business training that fosters ethics and social responsibility.
Thank you for considering these questions. Please watch for announcements of activities on campus before our vote begins onSeptember 19th: there will be several events, so that all adjuncts can participate.
We hope you will bring your questions and concerns—and, we hope you’ll decide to vote Yes, so that we can make meaningful changes in our work as adjuncts. We your colleagues would appreciate hearing from you, and feel welcome to contact any or all of us.
Sincerely yours,
Bentley Adjunct Union Organizing Committee Members:
Jack Dempsey (English & Media Studies) Phone: 781-438-3042, [email protected]
Elaine Saunders (Mathematical Sciences) Phone: 617-999-5277, [email protected]
Lord Andzie-Quanioo (Economics) Phone: 405-474-7784, [email protected]
Doug Kierdorf (History) Phone: 617-527-0373, [email protected]
Joan Atlas (English & Media Studies) Phone: 781-775-1025, [email protected]
Ted Kaplan (Mathematical Sciences) Phone: 617-965-4086, [email protected]
Bob Hannigan (History) Phone: 781-862-6809, [email protected]
Bob Keefe (English & Media Studies) Phone: 978-282-9563, [email protected]
Fred Wesemann (English & Media Studies) Phone: 781-935-6575, [email protected]
Gabe Repassy (Natural & Applied Sciences) Phone: 781- 775-8906
Thomas Finn (English & Media Studies) Phone: 617-997-8210, [email protected]
Barbara Nash (Natural & Applied Sciences) Phone: 978-369-4336, [email protected]
George Seeley (Global Studies) Phone: 781- 259-0841, [email protected]
Alicia Nitecki (English and Media Studies) Phone: 617- 629-4950, [email protected]
Kathleen Daly (English & Media Studies) Phone: 781-235-4472, [email protected]
P.S. To sign an authorization card to join the union go to: http://action.seiu.org/page/
To unsubscribe, visit http://action.seiu.org/
From Boston.com, June 7, 2013:
As Bentley adjuncts push to unionize, school approves wage increase
By Katherine Landergan, Town Correspondent
As adjunct faculty at Bentley University push forward with their plans to unionize, the administration has approved a substantial pay raise for part-time professors — a move that school officials say was independent of the adjunct’s campaign for better wages and benefits.
The university wrote in a statement that earlier this semester, Bentley’s Academic Affairs Administration approved a wage increase, from $4,575 to $5,000 per course, or a 9.29 percent increase, for its undergraduate adjunct faculty. Graduate adjuncts will now make $5,250 instead of $5,050 per class, a 3.55 percent increase.
The new wages will take effect July 1, according to the university.
According to the university’s statement,a task force formed in 2010 recommended that adjunct pay be reviewed every two years.
But Bentley adjunct Jack Dempsey said although the increase seems significant — a 38.9 percent increase for the overall salary — over the past ten years, adjunct pay has only increased 3.3 percent per year. The faculty learned of the raise at the end of May, he said.
“It is an awesome raise, but it is still less than minimum wage” when factoring in the number of hours an adjunct works, Dempsey said.
Dempsey said that 60 adjuncts out of 180 have voted in favor of an election to decide whether to unionize the Bentley part-time faculty. The election will be held in late September, he said.
The hope, Dempsey said, is for adjunct faculty to make half of a full-time assistant professor. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the average full-time professor makes $55,000. Dempsey said an adjunct who teaches four courses a year should be making half of that salary.
“I don’t know how to argue for less than equality,” he said. “We are going to be asking for equal pay for equal work.”
Bentley adjuncts have partnered with the Service Employees International Union, an organization that has unionized more than 15,000 adjunct professors from across the country. Dempsey said that Bentley is part of a broader trend: the SEIU is now working with adjuncts from several Boston-area schools to advocate for better wages and working conditions.
According to the SEIU, in 2011, part-time faculty held 50 percent of teaching jobs at colleges, up from 34 percent in 1987 and 22 percent in 1970. Among private, non-profit schools in the Boston-area, 66.8 percent of faculty are non-tenure track and 42 percent are part-time.
In a letter sent this week from the adjunct faculty to Bentley administrators, the professors wrote that the goal of the union is to increase the value and reputation of the school.
“We are dedicated members of the Bentley community and we are proud to be part of a business school that does so much to keep ethics and social responsibility at the fore of its curriculum,” the letter said. “But values and leadership will suffer when one segment of the faculty is asked to support them on a wholly unequal and unlivable basis.”
Bentley said in the statement that the school values its part-time professors. For example, the arts and sciences adjuncts and business adjuncts are paid at the same rate, which the university says is unusual. Typically, business adjuncts are paid more than their arts and sciences counterparts.
The statement also said that “currently Bentley is one of the few universities where adjuncts have representation on the Faculty Senate. This reflects the University’s view that our adjuncts are an integral part of the Bentley.”
But Dempsey said that the university needs to treat its adjuncts better, by increasing part-time faculty salaries to the liveable wage.
“We’re just realizing if we don’t stand up for ourselves and our value, nobody will,” he said.
Bentley University’s Organizing Committee’s response to Provost Pages’s Letter to the faculty:
To Bentley University Provost Michael Page, and all members of the Bentley faculty
On May 9, 2013, Provost Page wrote to Bentley’s faculty about the formation of a union for the university’s adjunct professors. One of his points was that, should this union come into being, Bentley would engage and negotiate with its members in good faith — a commitment that we value and fully intend to reciprocate. On May 23, however, Provost Page summarized the history of adjunct pay raises over the past decade, and we feel we must respond to that e-mail. As we approach Bentley’s union vote in September, we urge all of our faculty colleagues to compare the provost’s information with the following.
The upcoming raise for AY 2013/14 will increase adjunct pay to $5000 per undergraduate course. As the provost noted, this will be a 38.9% increase over the $3600 rate in AY 2003/4. While this figure seems substantial, it does not address the fact that during the ten year period from AY 2003/4 to AY 2013/14 inclusive, the average annual pay increase was only 3.3%. For the nine years prior to the latest increase, the annual average was 2.7%.
Moreover, none of this data recognizes the great disparity in pay and benefits between adjuncts and full-time faculty. Incredible as it may seem, adjunct pay – for the work of course design, class preparation, teaching, grading, office hours, working with students outside of class, recommendation letters and more — amounts to less than Boston’s Livable Wage.
We are approximately 40% of Bentley faculty: we are crucial to the university’s ability to deliver what students and their families pay for. The courses we teach enable every student to benefit from their Bentley years. Our Ph.D.s and training, our real-world experience, and our contributions in and beyond direct teaching, define us as equals of full-time faculty in terms of what we offer students every day.
Finally, the provost’s denial of any “inequity” in the circumstances of Bentley’s adjuncts is based on the fact that while Bentley adjuncts receive less pay than adjuncts at some other schools, we are paid more than colleagues at many others. This comparison is entirely external to the inequality we face right here at Bentley, and there is scarce justification in the idea that while all schools treat adjuncts poorly, Bentley is not the worst.
It is time to recognize that the issue is one of ethics and fairness, not what the market rate may be. As a leader in business ethics, Bentley could and should take the national lead in correcting these inequalities. And while the provost warns of “uncertainties” resulting from a union, we believe that this is the only way to have a real voice in the decisions made about our work lives and to develop a relationship of equality with the administration. That is exactly what our union vote is about: whether or not we will be able to bargain as equals with our employer.
We hope that our administration, full-time colleagues and adjunct fellows understand that the goal of this union is to increase the value, standing and reputation of all that Bentley is and offers. We are dedicated members of the Bentley community and we are proud to be part of a business school that does so much to keep ethics and social responsibility at the fore of its curriculum. But values and leadership will suffer when one segment of the faculty is asked to support them on a wholly unequal and unlivable basis.
So we ask you to consider, discuss, and take action to support this union effort toward our simple equality. We ask you to consider us as authentic partners in making Bentley University the national, cutting-edge leader in shaping ethical, responsible business leaders of the future. Nothing can demonstrate Bentley’s commitment and achievement more truly than how it treats all the people who deliver the core value of its classrooms.
We welcome all discussion of these matters, so please feel welcome to contact any of us. And thank you for considering this information.
Very truly yours,
Bentley Adjuncts Union Organizing Committee Members:
Jack Dempsey (English & Media Studies)
Elaine Saunders (Mathematical Sciences)
Lord Andzie-Quanioo (Economics)
George Seeley (Global Studies)
Doug Kierdorf (History)
Gabe Repassy (Applied Sciences)
Joan Atlas (English & Media Studies)
Ted Kaplan (Mathematical Sciences)
Bob Hannigan (History)
Kathleen Daly (English & Media Studies)
Patricia Bossi (Mathematical Sciences)
