Like many institutions around the country, the University of Cincinnati (UC) has dramatically increased its use of part-time faculty in recent years. Part-timers now make up about 42 percent of the UC faculty and teach the majority of the undergraduate courses.

Adjuncts at UC, like a growing number of their counterparts around the country, are turning toward collective action to improve their pay, working conditions and status on campus. This fall, the UC Adjunct Faculty Association announced that it had affiliated with the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) and the AFT to launch an organizing campaign to win collective bargaining rights for almost 1,500 adjunct faculty.

Howard Konicov, a UC calculus instructor, organized the adjunct association about two years ago because of what he characterizes as "a dispiriting environment to work in." The adjuncts' concerns at UC mirror those of part-timers at other institutions. For starters, the pay of $1,500 per course is about half the national average. Only those instructors who have an annual appointment and carry a full-time course load have the right to buy the university's health coverage--at full cost. Others don't even have that option. Job security is nonexistent, as are offices and personal telephones.

"It's important to support your teaching faculty," Konicov says. While university administrators focus on the money that research faculty bring in, a careful analysis would show that high-quality teaching faculty are also a good investment because they help the institution retain students, Konicov argues. "The university needs to see that it's not in its best interest to marginalize teaching faculty."

The UC adjunct campaign, the first in Ohio, faces some significant obstacles. As OFT president and AFT vice president Tom Mooney points out, part-time faculty are not included in the state's collective bargaining law, but the law does allow for voluntary recognition of the union by the university, so that will be the goal of the campaign. Ultimately, he adds, the OFT would like to see the state labor laws amended to include adjuncts.

Konicov promises a "dignified, professional campaign" by the Adjunct Faculty Association. "We're going to raise issues, and we're going to shine the light of public scrutiny on them one by one.... My sense is we can get this done fast, but of course the administration's strategy is to work at geological time. But the longer it takes, the stronger we'll be."  [Barbara McKenna / AFT On Campus]

[November 15, 2002]