The internationally renowned American university system is known throughout the world as a beacon of democracy and is dominant among its large competitors in important areas like technology development and basic research. But many crisis are building from the lack of equal opportunity to the breakdown of K-12 education. Yet one controversy inside the much-hyped university system is a new and deeply political threat. A battle is raging between unionizing adjunct professors and established unions representing full-time professors. Across the country, legislators are only beginning to deal with the problem.

Unionizing Adjunct Teachers

Two articles related to a recently defeated piece of legislation in Washington State give a good overview of the situation from opposing sides. The first article opposes the new unions and is by Karen Strickland and Michael Boggess from the American Federation of Teachers, a gigantic union with a storied history representing over a million teachers – presumably all full-time. The other article is by Keith Hoeller and Jack Longmate who have worked on building some of the first unions for part-time professors.

Stickland and Boggess’ recent article, “Legislature should let community college faculty manage their own affairs”, sees problems with the proposed legislation in Washington warning, “Senate Bill 5844 (sponsored by Sens. Tim Sheldon and Pam Roach) would perpetuate the inequity at an annual cost of $600,000.” According to the article:

“SB 5844 is not the answer. Its approach is a flawed one that would undermine the collective power of faculty, leaving contingent faculty with the monumental task of organizing, forming a new bargaining unit, and competing for new contracts. It is a divide-and-conquer approach that perpetuates the two-tier system that was set up by college administrations long before unions began representing faculty.”

Hoeller and Longmate are understandably worried that adjuncts are not being represented well in the current system they defiantly labeled “faculty apartheid”. In the recent opinion piece, “State should give part-time community college faculty a fair deal”, they detail the allegations against the established unions:

“At every opportunity, the full-time faculty have cannibalized the salaries of part-time faculty, whether it be salaries, or incremental step raises, or cost of living adjustments, part-time equity pay, or overtime work. The full-timers consistently take the larger share for their minority and leave a pittance for the part-timers who form the majority.”

The article also strongly supported the legislation saying, “SB 5844 will at long last give adjunct faculty the right to choose their own unions free of supervisors.” They added:

“Under current Washington state laws, two-thirds of our state’s community and technical college faculty are classified as temporary part-time faculty and paid poverty-level wages (typical annual pay for a part-timer teaching half-time is $16,835). This is not simply because part-timers work fewer hours; it is because part-time faculty are paid at a much lower rate than full-time faculty.

The law denies the part-timers some very basic protections. In Clawson v. Grays Harbor Community College (2002) Seattle attorney Steve Frank brought suit on behalf of the adjunct faculty who taught in several community colleges, including the Seattle community colleges and Green River. Based entirely on legal definitions that made little or no distinction between full-time and part-time faculty, our state Supreme Court unanimously — and wrongly — decided that part-time faculty were “professionals” and exempt from the Minimum Wage Act. The court discounted how adjuncts were treated, instead ruling on how the colleges defined them. The ruling also means that part-time faculty are not paid for all the time they devote to the job. At least for unskilled workers, that practice would be forbidden.”

Speaking before the recent news, Hoeller and Longmate had asked, “Will the Legislature act to give us the labor rights all other state employees have?” As fate would have it, the bill was dropped from this year’s budget in Washington’s fractious state legislature. But it does seem that both sides were right about one thing: the labor unrest will continue.

Unionizing Adjunct BONUS:

As a bonus, one of the comments on the ATF article was from DC writer Ana Maria Fores Tamayo:

While I am not part of Washington State, I am very interested in what is happening there, as it repeats — inversely — what is happening throughout the country, but especially in the South, where I am from. I see the arguments that Jack Longmate poses, and I wonder what it is that these AFT union people have to hide; yet it seems to me this is exactly what they are doing. “It is a divide-and-conquer approach that perpetuates the two-tier system that was set up by college administrations long before unions began representing faculty.”

I know these words are often spoken by administrators warning their folk about unions coming in to invade colleges and universities, yet this is now AFT writing them, twisting them: “‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).” [From Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass]

Doesn’t that smack of something going against the grain? Why are these AFT union people so intent in keeping another union from forming? Of calling union formation anti-union, of using anti-union language, when what the only thing SB 5844 wants to do is establish its own separate union, apart from the full-time faculty union, because their interests are antithetical? What are AFT and the other big unions afraid of?

It seems that if Washington State does not revisit this very logical bill, and let an adjunct faculty union form — just like Alice from Wonderland — they will have forgotten “how to speak good English”, and they will be forever stuck, not in a good way, “through the Looking Glass”, trying to get out.

 

In sol(idarity),

Ana M. Fores Tamayo

Adjunct Justice