City News

Star Tribune Adjunct OpEd: Why Adjunct Professors are Unionizing

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…

Read the entire piece at the Star Tribune.

Conversation with Rebecca Schuman

On June 27, the Adjunct Action Network hosted a live on-air conversation with Rebecca Schuman, education reporter for Slate magazine and contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education. She was joined on-screen by Joe Fruscione, Lee Bessette, and Katie Pryal.

Hamline University Adjuncts Vote Overwhelmingly to Join SEIU

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

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

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!”

SF Art Institute Adjuncts Vote by a Landslide to Form a Union with SEIU

Two weeks after Mills College, SFAI’s “visiting faculty,” as the school calls them, are the latest group of adjunct professors to join SEIU through the nationwide Adjunct Action campaign. At San Francisco Art Institute, a well-known and respected private nonprofit arts college—where students pay almost $40,000 a year in tuition alone—roughly 78% of the faculty (about 200 teachers) are essentially part-time temp workers.

They have no job security from semester to semester. They are paid by the course, often earning less than $30,000 a year with no benefits even teaching several classes, despite having advanced degrees, exemplary performance and evaluations and years of teaching experience. Classes may be added or cancelled at the last minute, leaving them in a financial lurch and creating constant instability. The school calls them “visiting faculty,” no matter how long they have been teaching there—prompting jokes such as “visiting for life,” or “I have been visiting for 17 years.”

“We want an end to a climate of fear that resonates even where we gather online. We want the security to do the work on which SFAI depends whether it admits it or not. We want the standing to communicate our knowledge of the needs and problems of the institution to which we are devoted without fear of reprisal. SFAI will benefit from an organized and empowered cohort of adjunct teachers,” says Dale Carrico, a professor of critical thinking at SFAI.

Visiting faculty have now taken a stand. They have voted by 78% (124 to 35) to form a union through SEIU Local 1021—despite an aggressive anti-union campaign by their administration, under the leadership of President Charles Desmarais, who simultaneously sang the praises of his father, a Teamsters shop steward, while warning his faculty that a union in a small art college would disrupt their “close-knit artistic community.” Visiting faculty have decisively repudiated that argument.

Adjunct faculty at Mills College in Oakland also voted by a 78% margin to form a union with SEIU Local 1021 on May 14. The following day, adjuncts at Northeastern University in Boston voted to form a union with SEIU. They join over 20,000 adjuncts nationwide who have now unionized with SEIU through the Adjunct Action campaign.

Just a few decades ago, adjuncts constituted a minority of faculty, and were most often professionals who did not consider teaching their career. However, now over 50% of faculty nationwide are contingent, and about 75% in the Bay Area, even as tuition skyrockets and student debt becomes more and more unmanageable. As universities are increasingly run like corporations, trying to bring in more money with ever lower labor costs, the teachers educating students increasingly feel the need to take a stand to improve not only their own quality of life, but also the quality of the education their students are paying for so dearly.

For more information, visit www.adjunctactionbayarea.org.

Macalester, University of St. Thomas and Hamline Contingent Faculty Unite, File for Union Election

Adjunct and contingent faculty at Macalester College, University of St. Thomas and Hamline University in St. Paul announced that they have filed for their union election to join Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 284 as part of the national Adjunct Action campaign.

Macalester and Hamline faculty announced the filing at an event with students and Congressman Keith Ellison that capped off a student-led “Contingent Faculty Appreciation Week,” at Macalester Collge that was covered in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, University of Minnesota Daily and Minnesota Public Radio.

Adjunct and contingent faculty spoke of why they are organizing and how a union will give them a voice to improve higher education for both faculty and students.

“We’re coming together because we love our jobs. Right now, contingent faculty are vulnerable because we have no say in determining our contracts,” said SooJin Pate, an adjunct faculty at Macalster. “We believe that having a voice in the decision-making process that affects our lives will not only make us better professors, but will also strengthen the educational mission of the college, making this a better place for our students.”

Macalester students organized multiple events this week to show their support for contingent faculty and spoke at the event Thursday as to why adjunct and contingent faculty forming a union will benefit students on campus.

“The working conditions of adjunct and contingent faculty have a direct impact on my college education – when they need to go between multiple jobs to support themselves, I lose out because the majority of my Macalester experience comes from interacting with professors outside the classroom,” said Leewana Thomas, a Macalester student who joined the faculty at the press conference. “Some of my favorite professors are contingent faculty members, so of course I support their efforts to strengthen Macalester for both students and faculty.”

At the event Congressman Keith Ellison voiced his support for the students and faculty fighting to improve higher education, and shared a public letter he wrote in support of the faculty that stated his hope that Macalester administration would “take the ‘higher ground’ by committing to a position of neutrality and non-interference” with the faculty’s decision to organize.

Adjunct faculty, now the majority of teaching faculty across the country, typically have no job security, no benefits and low pay that forces adjuncts to string together jobs at multiple colleges and universities to make ends meet. At the same time, revenues and tuition have increased steadily over the last two decades while spending on instruction has declined – and it’s adjuncts and their deeply-in-debt students who are suffering as a result.

MA Senators Support Northeastern Adjuncts

It’s chilly outside as we begin a new semester at Northeastern, but our efforts to form a union are heating up and we’ve got some exciting news to share!

Take a look at these letters of support for NEU adjuncts from US Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and Representative Capuano.

Our democracy is rooted in the idea of an educated citizenry, but access to higher education is all but slipping away from working families and their children. Universities have shifted resources from instruction to administration funded by quickly rising tuition, resulting in record levels of student debt and unfair, unstable working conditions for the adjuncts who teach them.

Luckily, as college and university faculty caught up in this crisis in higher education, we have support from our students, parents, other teachers, and elected officials who understand that our precarious positions and low levels of job security limit our academic freedom and endanger our profession.

As adjuncts across the nation are already doing, we are building a union and joining a movement to win professional pay and standards. Let’s work together to gain a stronger voice in the NEU community, in our future, and the future of higher education.