The academic staffing crisis--i.e., the increasing reliance on contingent faculty in higher education resulting in the loss of full-time, tenure-track positions and the exploitation of part-time/adjunct faculty--is an issue that AFT has actively been addressing since the late 1960s. We have worked aggressively against the erosion of full-time tenure-track faculty positions and their replacement by a growing, and exploited body of part-time, adjunct, and other non-tenure-track faculty. At the same time, AFT locals and state federations have developed strategies for improving the working conditions of part-time/adjunct faculty--obtaining equal pay, benefits and professional working conditions. Here are just a few organizing and policy highlights.

In New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s, thousands of part-time and full-time faculty at the City University of New York (CUNY) decided in favor of forming a single bargaining unit by a vote of 8,258 to 942. The decision to merge became the basis for one of the nation’s strongest faculty unions, the Professional Staff Congress. In the same year elections were won by the United College Employees of the Fashion Institute of Technology (which through the years has developed one of the most comprehensive contracts for part-time/adjunct faculty) as well as by the United University Professions at the State University of New York (SUNY) and several community colleges in New York.

Starting in the 1970s and continuing through the 1980s, the California Federation of Teachers helped to organize approximately 15,000 part-time/adjunct faculty in the California Community Colleges--an organizing effort that continues to this day and has been crucial to the CFT’s legislative victories. In 2000, as part of a labor coalition, the CFT was able to secure $57 million to help close the gap between full-time and part-time/adjunct faculty pay.

In spring 1999, AFT Washington (then the Washington Federation of Teachers) saw its vigorous lobbying efforts come to fruition when the Washington state biennial budget passed with $10 million for salary increases for part-timers, expanded eligibility for retirement benefits, and a mandated analysis of faculty employment patterns. The board that conducted the study ultimately recommended creating 300 new full-time positions in Washington’s community and technical colleges.

In November 2000, the University Professionals of Illinois spurred the passage of a resolution by the Illinois Legislature that sets broad expectations to reduce the over-reliance on part-time/adjunct faculty members in the state, while also moving toward equity in pay and benefits. In particular, the resolution calls for university reports on employment practices, along with a rationale for them, policy recommendations for creating more tenured full-time positions, and recommendations for achieving parity in compensation. Similar legislation subsequently was passed in Pennsylvania through the efforts of the Pennsylvania Coalition for Parity in Higher Education, a coalition organized in part by the Faculty Federation of the Community College of Philadelphia/AFT and other AFT locals.

Beyond "bread and butter" concerns about improving the conditions under which adjuncts are employed, the AFT also strives to address the professional status issues of part-time/adjunct instructors. Thus, provisions adopted in part-time/adjunct faculty contracts are written with an eye to enhancing job security, broadening participation in institutional governance, extending compensation for instructional duties (e.g., office hours), securing professional privileges and amenities, and establishing professional development opportunities.

United University Professions (SUNY) negotiated that the Statewide Professional Development Committee will "make recommendations and implement professional development programs responsive to the needs of part-time academic and professional employees."

The United College Employees of the Fashion Institute of Technology (New York) negotiated an innovative provision guaranteeing that part-time/adjunct faculty who have met certain criteria would receive a "Certificate of Continuous Employment," which gives them hiring preferences as well as access to benefits. The contract further stipulates that any part-time/adjunct faculty member holding a certificate has the right to vote in departmental affairs such as appointment, tenure, promotions, elections of chairs, and so on.

Similarly, the Faculty Federation of the Community College of Philadelphia/AFT contract delineates a seniority system that bolsters part-time job security by creating procedures for reappointment and hiring preferences. In addition, the Philadelphia contract gives part-timers a measure of upward mobility, through a requirement stipulating that when a hiring committee recommends two candidates for each full-time position, at least one of them must be a qualified member of the part-time/visiting-lecturer unit.

The California Federation of Teachers Community College Council has worked to pass legislation entitling part-time/adjunct faculty to paid compensation for office hours. The Los Rios Community College District Federation of Teachers (California), for instance, established an "Adjunct Faculty Office Hours Program," which uses legislatively provided funds to pay for one adjunct faculty office hour per week so long as a minimum 40 percent of a full-time teaching load is met.

If you are considering organizing on your campus, we encourage you to visit Web sites of the various AFT locals that represent part-time, adjunct, and other non-tenure-track faculty. Look at the type of work they are accomplishing and see the differences that organizing can make.