A Contingent Faculty Member's Perspective on Recent Discussions

It is puzzling that those with a long record of advocating for those of us on contingent labor contracts would accuse the only organizations that have successfully improved our working conditions of not acting in good faith. The arguments are so confused that I worried over them for some time, not knowing exactly how to respond. I think AFT has shown the money time and time again. I also fail to understand why anyone would think they did not have a major impact on our salaries and working conditions.

Ideally, institutions of higher education should be limiting the number of contingent contracts. It is their responsibility, not that of the unions. And colleges have failed that responsibility. The use of adjuncts is too profitable. Along with the number of adjuncts, the number of administrative positions keeps increasing with higher and higher salaries. One former vice president who made it into the news made over $90,000 with no graduate degree. I have a sickening feeling that our low pay has made that possible.

What my colleagues and I realized many years ago (before we ever contacted a union and when we were just getting together to find common goals) were two basic realities of our working life: the adjunct system was undermining American higher education and universities were more interested in hiring the cheapest workforce than the most experienced or the best qualified people. We decided, in the words of one of my colleagues, that our goal was “to make sure there were fewer of us.” That is the need that FACE recognizes.

We have to put the brakes on the increasing number of people who are on contingent contracts. Some of my colleagues, however, became frightened that any move toward more tenure track positions meant they would be replaced by someone newer or with a higher degree. Some also worried that if they were paid more, they would be fired because they were too expensive. In other words, they had survived in this system and any change was threatening. Of course, these were the very worries that administration kept encouraging.

Meanwhile, administrators are hired with tenure and use tenure as a golden parachute when they are fired. Fewer national searches are done, searches fail, and faculty leave. FACE is not going to fix everything, but it is a move in the right direction. And that, right now, is what we need.

Comments

[Sam Rosenthal]

Ms. Harper is, of course, one of the three part-time faculty who serve as Vice Presidents on the 15 member Executive Board of the Washington Federation of Teachers. Given her level of involvement in the WFT, which on its website touts FACE and WFT's introduction of a bill that called for funding more full-time faculty positions (That bill recently died, but WFT holds out hope).

In short, it is no small wonder Ms. Harper is "puzzled" by the recent questions from part-time faculty in the AFT/WFT concerning the efficacy of the work of the WFT/AFT on behalf of their part-time members. They are, in essence, questioning work in which she is invested.

I would agree that people can be afraid of change. Surely some part-time faculty object to the changes proposed by FACE legislation out of sheer terror. However, the part-time faculty whose comments I have read on the Adj-L listserv, and to which Ms. Harper obliquely refers (I believe) don't strike me as Nervous Nellies. They strike me as incredibly informed individuals who have spotted some major flaws in the FACE initiative, as well as AFT's representation of its 45,000 part-time faculty members.

As for Ms. Harper's conclusion that FACE is what "we need" at the moment, again, she is not speaking objectively; she represents the organization which developed FACE. This mutes the objectivity and strength of her comments, I think. It also demonstrates the paternalistic (or in this case maternalistic) attitude of AFT officials concerning the organization's representation of its part-time faculty. Perhaps AFT officials who represent us might ask what we want. I imagine this would inspire us significantly more than telling us what we need.

[Lila Harper]

I am giving a personal response based on my work experiences. These experiences led to my union involvement. It did not happen the other way around. Unlike the community colleges in Washington state, we only recently obtained the right to collectively bargain after much work on the part of AFT Washington and WEA. I have been a part-timer for 19 years at Central Washington University, most of time without a union contract or really any protection from sudden firings. Where do you work?

[Craig Smith]

AFT Washington’s bill this session seeks new full-time faculty lines AND priority consideration for part-time faculty to fill those positions. Sam, you have made it perfectly clear that you don’t approve of that approach. That is your position, but please do not misrepresent the actual bill. This bill follows last year’s bill (during the session where appropriations for the upcoming two-year budget cycle were made) which called for pay equity for part-time faculty and resulted in millions of dollars being appropriated for part-time salaries in equity funds. Again, you might not believe it was enough (neither does AFT WA) but don’t misrepresent what has been put forward as well as what has been accomplished.

But ultimately, Lila asks the right question—where do you work and are you working with others, either through your union or other organization, to see how you can forward your ideas and passion to help move the agenda forward? To criticize Lila for being involved and committed is the ultimate in “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” trap. Someone who has been a contingent faculty for nearly two decades works on an agenda and works to improve the staffing structure and she is criticized for being co-opted because she is working for a particular end? If your vision for moving forward is different, fine. Share it (and by “it” I mean real actual alternatives). Share it here. Share it at your local level. Share it at your state level. But please do not suggest that others who are also committed are simply misguided.

Finally, to suggest that AFT did not ask its members what they thought in crafting this campaign is a disservice to the many, many contingent faculty and full-time faculty who discussed this effort at every level of the union over a two-year period. The campaign was vetted repeatedly in its formation and again in the summer after it was introduced. We continue to talk through the campaign with our contingent faculty advisory groups and state federations who are working on this issue. And FACE Talk is an ongoing venue for further discussion and we welcome all comments including your own and others who have alternative ideas.

[Sam Rosenthal]

A real and actual alternative:

A national campaign sponsored by AFT that legislates pro-rata pay and benefits for part-time faculty, and funded in perpetuity by a state fund, similar to the one suggested for the current FACE bill. The pro-rata pay and benefits solve the financial expoitation of its part-time faculty members--a problem which AFT representatives have told legislators all over the United States has damaged higher education.

Preferential hiring is not a tangible gain or benefit; it is a vague promise. Further, it was stripped out of the UUP's (AFT New York) bill, and the union leaders took their $20 million and 2000 and ran. Phil Ray Jack made clear that Washington legislators were wary to include such language in the WFT bill that died. To add insult to injury, In Washington State, the original AFT bill called for significant pay increases for full-time faculty (to attrack outside candidates, I would imagine) and none for part-time faculty.

If preferential hiring and opportunity are all the AFT offers to part-time faculty in FACE and the clauses routinely get stripped out of the model legislation, should part-timers just shrug and chalk it up to bad luck? I don't think so. We do need more full-time faculty. However, spending millions of dollars on legislative efforts that will not tangibly benefit part-time and full-time faculty equally is unacceptable.

I kow for a fact that the objections being raised about FACE were communicated to AFT officials both state and national by part-time faculty activists many, many times over the period during which you say FACE was "vetted."

Finally, those equity funds in Washington State you mention (an approach based on that of California) have resulted in part-time faculty equity money going to full-time faculty teaching overload courses. It's no surprise, of course. The same thing has happened in California every year since the legislature there alloted funds to the "Part-time Faculty Equity Fund." Tens of millions of dollars in part-time faculty equity pay has been diverted to full-time faculty.

[Annette Stofer]

I am not sure where Mr. Rosenthal gets his information nor why he feels the need to insult hard-working faculty like Lila Harper and others involved in union work. Some anti-union critics seem to think that mere election to a union office taints a person’s judgment and reliability. I myself have been personally attacked as someone who blindly follows the powers that be without ever questioning what they feed to me. I have a long history of involvement as a part-timer, and I can assure you that I, along with my other part-time peers in union leadership, do a great deal of critical thinking. It's insulting and a sad bias to think that we can't come to our own conclusion about the value of FACE.

About incorrect information: In Washington State, the original FACE bill of 2007 called for significant pay increases for both full- and part-time faculty. It called for raising full-time salaries to a particular level and pro-rating part-time salaries to full-time salaries, perforce raising the part-time salaries too. This year’s bill called for no salary increases at all since it was not a budget-writing year, and since we had secured salary increases for two years for part-time faculty (but none for full-time) in addition to a COLA for all.

About our humanity: We do not chalk up the continuing loss of job security language to “bad luck” nor do we shrug it off. We feet the loss of that language profoundly; job security is a key piece of the comprehensive approach to protecting part-time faculty while improving our institutions through increasing the numbers of full-time positions. We want good jobs for all. Full-time jobs, and protected part-time jobs are good jobs. We want to help both part-time and full-time faculty; all of our legislation attempts do that except when we have focused on a particular benefit that was only for part-timers.

Furthermore, we lay the blame for removal of job security directly on administration working behind the scenes in the legislature, a powerful force that anti-unionists seem unwilling to acknowledge or confront. Once bill language is put into the hands of legislators, it becomes their toy to play with—and they do. Perhaps Mr. Rosenthal doesn’t understand how hard it is to get any legislation passed. It is far easier, immeasurably easier, to kill a bill than to pass one. In the legislature, a handful of determined enemies—administrators or anti-unionists--can checkmate the work of hundreds of supporters.

As Lila said in her original post, it is “puzzling” that people who profess to have similar goals to those of us who work inside the union structure spend as much time criticizing us as they do. I can only conclude that they have an agenda other than the one presented publicly.

[Sam Rosenthal]

Ms. Stofer plays the "anti-unionist" card. She infers that surely only an anti-unionist could possibly question the status quo, raise doubts and/or dissent. Here's what I say: call me what you like, but stop pretending FACE delivers to part-time faculty represented by AFT any tangible benefits. A promise is not a tangible benefit; it is a promise and nothing more. Only fools count on promises, everyone else relies on what's written down.

Her call for solidarity and name-calling is just so much thrashing about--the efforts of a desperate individual or oranization unaccustomed to dissent.

Ms. Smith's work is commendable, I'm sure--her support of the AFT's FACE initiave wholehearted, obviously. Her twisting of fact is absolute and, again, consistent with a loss as to what to do when people won't simply buy what AFT is trying ever so hard to sell.

If it is far easier to kill a bill (as the FACE bill was killed in Washington State) then I rejoice in that bit of information. For the single instance in which FACE succeeded, in New York, 8000 part-time faculty got nothing from their union's efforts. Not even a public apology. Not a single word was uttered to acknowledge that the FACE legislation failed to serve AFT's members equally. In that case, the silence spoke volumes.

Ms. Smith's call for solidarity speaks volumes, as well. When, oh when, will "solidarity" by part-time faculty AFT members stop meaning that part-time faculty end up accepting the shorter end of the stick, because according to those unionists who, allegedly, represent our best interests, the shorter end is better than no end at all?

[Craig Smith]

Sam, our contributors are routinely taking time to talk about the efforts they are involved in to try to improve the lives of contingent faculty through legislation, bargaining, organizing, etc. Perhaps rather than just trolling about the site and criticizing the efforts of others, you might start sharing some of your own constructive efforts at your institution, state or wherever.

[Sam Rosenthal]

First, you asked for an actual alternative to FACE which would benefit part-time faculty, and I suggested one to you. Is the notion of the AFT launching a major legislative effort on behalf of pro-rata pay and benefits for the 50,000 part-time faculty whom they represent so far-fetched? Too expensive? Political suicide? Not worth the effort?

Do those of you write this blog think part-time faculty equity funds should be paid to full-time faculty who teach part-time on overload?

What do those of you posting here think about the fact that in New York all of the language of the FACE model legislation, which you have repeatedly written would benefit us part-time faculty, was stripped out of the final product?

How about instead of getting cranky and defensive, you respond to the facts with some facts that address the issues at hand?

Oh, and I am not criticizing anyone else who posts here personally. I don't know any of you personally. If I did, I would be asking the same questions! I am sure you're all perfectly wonderful people. The work many of you do, however, impacts thousands of part-timers for the better, but also in some cases is impacting us adversely. It's time for those of us whom you represent to get informed, involved and ask better questions.

When you refuse to answer those questions, redirect, obfuscate and suggest people who ask questions are anti-union, you're closing ranks. Doing so may even lead one to to conclude that our system of representation has become somewhat out-of-touch. Questioning is a part of any discussion, and questions from members of a membership organization, one hopes, are welcomed and answered as thoroughly, factually and directly as possible.