PrintIt's TIME for adjuncts to be heard
In May 2004, adjunct faculty at Pace University voted 308-165 for union representation with the New York State United Teachers/AFT. On Nov. 4, the Union of Adjunct Faculty at Pace will mark the third anniversary of the date it sat down to bargain. At this point, the union will enter its fourth year of bargaining for a first contract—an ignominious record even by professional union-busting standards.
The kind of stalling tactics on display at the privately run Pace University are designed to suppress the rights of workers the university is already exploiting.
"This is just to see if we’re going to go away," says John Pawlowski, UAFP president. Pace adjuncts earn about $2,500 a course—one-fifth or one-sixth of what full-time faculty get, says Pawlowski—and no benefits. They have not gotten a raise in two years. "To me, the most crucial issue is job security," he adds. "Without that, money and benefits are meaningless."
This summer, hundreds of NYSUT members donned matching T-shirts and joined Pace adjuncts in demonstrating outside the office of Pace University board of trustees chair Aniello Bianco, who is vice president at Hildebrandt International in Somerset, N.J. They waved signs reading: "It’s TIME for a fair contract!" The line is stolen from the slogan Pace is using to celebrate the university’s 200th year anniversary.
The university’s negotiating team is headed by an outside lawyer. "They’re bargaining just enough so you can’t accuse them of not bargaining in good faith, or surface bargaining," says Pawlowski. "Yet, they have not touched on job security, money or benefits—specifically health benefits"—in three years!
Pace University has proven itself adept at the legal dance that blocks its employees from exercising their rights to free association. Shortly after the adjuncts voted for the union, Pace hired the union-busting consulting firm E-Team Communications to squash a burgeoning staff organizing drive. All but a unit of 20 drivers and mechanics fell away. That unit, the Pace Transportation Union/NYSUT/AFT, has won two National Labor Relations Board-sponsored elections. But despite NLRB certification of the PTU and consistent favorable NLRB rulings in response to university challenges, Pace refuses to bargain. The labor board is taking the university to court.
Pace continues to toy with the adjuncts, claiming that the rules that governed who would be in the unit for purposes of a vote (which excluded those who had taught fewer than two years) should be used to define the unit. Pawlowski notes that the stalling tactics at the bargaining table are targeted to the reality of the unit’s transitory nature. Adjuncts have busy lives teaching at multiple campuses. The university seems to be hoping the adjuncts, numbering about 1,200, and the drivers and mechanics, will give up.
"We’re not going away," says Pawlowski.
The Lecturers’ Employee Organization/AFT at the University of Michigan ratified a contract in September that begins to address the university’s treatment of its full-time, nontenure-track faculty as "disposable employees," says Bonnie Halloran, LEO president.
The three-year contract is the second for the union, which represents about 1,300 lecturers at the university’s Dearborn, Flint and Ann Arbor campuses. The lecturers are responsible for approximately 50 percent of the undergraduate teaching on all campuses of the University of Michigan.
The contract provides 3 percent raises each year at Flint and Dearborn, and a flat $1,200 raise at Ann Arbor. In addition to these annual salary increases, the contract also provides for 7 percent raises after the successful completion of performance reviews that occur twice every five years.
Benefit improvements include expansion of long-term sick pay, extended disability and expanded healthcare coverage through the summer.
While some departments grant lecturers use of professional development funds, the contract creates a new fund to benefit those who don’t have access.
It also strengthens grievance procedures and improves language on layoff and recall. "We consider these significant long-term wins for the lecturers," says Halloran.
LEO members ratified the contract through a mail-in vote of 318-10.
