April
27, 2016
Dear
Bargaining Team,
As
a union activist who has conducted a survey of over 450 adjuncts on one campus
and also done a bit of organizing among adjuncts, I think I
can assure you that, overall, adjunct union members enthusiastically support
the bargaining agenda. Adjuncts can vote yes on strike authorization and will
walk the picket line with everyone else. Some of us are ready to organize
adjuncts to do just that. What adjunct members want union negotiators to
remember is to be fair to all!
Across-the-board
solutions such as a 3-credit workload reduction or a certain percentage salary
increase aren’t always fair. They may exacerbate or perpetuate existing
inequities. “Fair” would reduce workload for full-time faculty at community
colleges more than at senior colleges when the research and service obligations
are the same. “Fair” would increase income for adjunct faculty more than for
full-time faculty when teaching standards are the same. And “fair” would match
the effective increase in pay per course due to workload reductions for
full-timers with a corresponding increase in pay per course for adjuncts.
OK,
you might say, we’ll do all that if there’s enough money on the table. Not OK!
Even $1 can be broken up into different sized stacks of pennies. How is it fair
to ask the lowest paid to sacrifice (again) for the sake of the highest paid? Would
you ask adjuncts to subsidize (from their pensions, savings, other jobs,
spouses’ incomes, etc.) not only the university but even their union brothers
and sisters? And, ethical considerations aside, who benefits when the minimum
wage for teaching is set so low?
Adjunct
groups have suggested steps to fulfill the union’s promise of pay equity: a
paid office hour for every course or a $30/hour increase at every step. We have
asked that the 9/6 rule be relaxed so adjuncts can make a living without
impossible complications. We have asked for either the CCE (a form of tenure)
or the tried and true labor movement principle of seniority. And there are
other possibilities.
As
far back as 2004 the PSC espoused the goal of “parity for adjuncts in income
and professional working conditions” and understood that “injury to one group
is injury to all in a fully committed union of workers” (Sept 2004, DA
Resolution for Dialog on Adjunct Workload). In 2007, our leadership pledged to
achieve pay parity for adjuncts in Phase III of the 3-contract strategy
(Nov-Dec 2007 Clarion). That’s this
contract. And of course you all remember that the DA adopted “significant
movement toward job security and parity for adjuncts” as a goal for this
contract (Clarion, Dec. 2010).
Please,
remember the union’s principles. Remember the union’s promises.
In
solidarity,
Ruth Wangerin
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, CSI and Lehman College
