Loss of benefits provokes strikes at colleges
By
Special to Workers World
New York
Published Apr 27, 2005 4:32 PM
Teachers in the
higher education industry in the United States are in turmoil. This is reflected
in week-long strikes by graduate student-teachers at two elite universities,
Yale and Columbia, as well as organizing drives at 60 public universities among
teaching adjuncts and a number of strikes at community colleges.
Before
World War II, higher education in the U.S. was generally restricted to elite
schools serving children of the ruling class or the wealthier professionals and
small businesspeople. The demands for a workforce capable of mastering and
creating advances in science and technology were slight and easily
satisfied.
Professors had tenure, which basically meant they were
guaranteed their jobs and could be fired only under the most unusual
circumstances. They had long vacations, long holidays, generally interesting
work and academic freedom that let them study and publish pretty much what they
wanted. They could use their free time for research, writing or consulting,
which often brought in substantial outside income.
All this has changed.
Currently only 30 percent of the 1.3 million people engaged in
post-secondary instruction are full-time employees with tenure or were hired
with the possibility of obtaining tenure. Full-time teachers with no possibility
of tenure make up 15 percent. Part-time faculty, called adjuncts, and graduate
students make up the other 55 percent of all higher-education instructors in the
United States. In the City Uni versity system of New York (CUNY), over half the
courses are taught by adjuncts.
The industrialization of higher education
is plunging ahead with full force.
The American Federation of Teachers
says it has 60 organizing drives going on among adjuncts in publicly funded
universities. Most adjuncts are poorly paid. Wages run from $390 for a
three-credit course in North Carolina to about $3,500 a course at CUNY, where
the adjuncts are part of a union, to $4,800 a course in California community
colleges. (aaupaz. org /salaries.htm)
Since adjuncts often work at more
than one institution, it is hard to find estimates of their average yearly
income. It would be a very lucky full-time adjunct who made more than $45,000 a
year, and most make less than $30,000. These are relatively low wages for
skilled workers with substantial training who may very well be in debt for their
own education.
Working conditions for adjuncts, even ones in a union, are
bad. They are lucky if they get a drawer in a shared desk; getting access to
e-mail and voice mail, which would let their students contact them, is
rare.
The most common benefit an adjunct gets is a library card. Very few
are covered by pensions. At CUNY, depending on how many hours they work, they do
get some health-care coverage, but no sick leave.
Twenty-five years ago,
the Supreme Court denied faculty in private colleges and universities the right
to unionize since, it said, they were part of management. This is called the
Yeshiva decision. The professorate were represented by the American Association
of University Professors, which became almost entirely a professional
organization. The AAUP has acted like a union only sporadically, where it has
some strength in public higher education institutions. At Rutgers, in New
Jersey, it called for a strike in the late 1980s.
Some private colleges do
have unions. The union is well established at Emerson College in Boston. College
President Jacqueline Liebergott has made it clear she wants the union to disband
or stop being so active. Its competitors are not unionized and Emerson wants to
be like them. It doesn’t want to bargain over class size or staffing
issues, or even to accept mediation. (Boston Globe, April 14)
Private
elite colleges tend to rely on graduate students, who are lower paid and have
fewer benefits than adjuncts.
Public universities are covered by different
laws and often have unions. At CUNY, a public university system whose 200,000
students are almost entirely the daughters, sons or members of the working
class, with over half born outside the U.S., the Professional Staff Congress
(PSC), AFT Local 2334, represents the faculty, including adjuncts, and staff
members with college degrees.
Under New York State’s Taylor Law,
strikes are illegal and contracts remain in force until a new one is signed. The
PSC, which has been working under an expired contract for over two years, is
conducting a militant pressure campaign. It has held a few large
demonstrations—the latest on April 19 and presences at the monthly Board
of Trustees meetings, mass telephone calls one day a week, and leafleting
students.
Management has raised its offer of a wage increase from 1.5
percent over four years to 6 percent, but this is still well below inflation. It
still hasn’t budged on equity for adjuncts and some other key
issues.
It is not clear whether the PSC’s pressure campaign is going
to achieve an acceptable contract, or whether its members are willing to go
further. But it is clear that if teachers in higher education don’t take
more militant, vigorous action, their positions and benefits are going to
continue to erode.
The writer is a delegate to the PSC from AFT Local
2334.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email:
[email protected]
Subscribe
[email protected]
Support independent news
DONATE