No trend has changed the face of higher education more than the shift away from a corps of full-time, tenure-track faculty to a contingent instructional workforce. That work force includes part-time/adjunct faculty, full-time, nontenure track faculty, and graduate employees. Together these employees now make up an amazing 70 percent of the 1.3 million employee instructional workforce in higher education.

Total postsecondary instructional workforce, by employment type

The growth of contingent labor over the last two decades represents a major and purposeful effort by higher education institutions to reduce the number of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty. This has been done partly in response to the failure of most states to provide adequate funding for their colleges and universities. But money isn’t the whole story.

The growth of contingent labor also mirrors the movement to run higher education institutions "more like a business." The traditions of tenure and shared governance, which guarantee due process and academic freedom, and which give faculty a major role in academic decision-making, run counter to a command-and-control business model. The fact that large numbers of academic workers are hired without effective job security, without decent salaries and benefits, and without a guaranteed role in academic decision-making is of great concern to those of us who value a free and independent academy.

Addressing this "academic staffing crisis" is one of AFT higher education’s highest priorities. We are working to find new ways to increase full-time tenure lines and at the same time achieve pay equity and professional rights for contingent faculty. Those efforts include:

• organizing all segments of the higher education instructional workforce;

• effecting legislative and political changes at the state level;

• bargaining strong collective bargaining agreements; and,

• working in coalition with other unions and like-minded organizations to draw attention to these issues nationally.

In addition, AFT is currently in the process of developing standards of good practice for all components of the contingent workforce to serve as guidelines for institutions and unions.