The Adjunct Advocate

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ARCHIVE: August 2008

August 25th 2008

Laugh, Cry, Hell's Bells...You Decide

Tyler Junior College in East Texas serves 12,000 students. According to the JC's web site, 250 of its 456 faculty are full-time. For some odd reason, the part-time faculty are getting a pay raise this year.

I say for some odd reason, because the part-time faculty per course pay at Tyler Junior College has not risen in 25 years, since the founder of "Reganomics" roamed the Oval Office. The last time the president of Tyler Junior College gave part-timers a pay hike, Margaret Thatcher had just been elected Prime Minister and Sally Ride became the first woman in space when she went up on the Space Shuttle Challenger. Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings both took the airwaves that year, and Microsoft Word was first released. Tennessee Williams, Gloria Swanson, Buckminster Fuller, Ira Gershwin and Slim Pickens died that year, and Polish activist Lech Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize.

According to this piece from the Tyler Morning Paragraph, Mike Metke, President of Tyler, decided that "We just did not want to go and say after all your hard work and everything you've done and your loyalty and with the cost of living going up the way it is, we just did not want to say there would be no increase." For part-timers, that meant an extra $150 per course.

The JC's 2008-09 proposed $57,498,474 budget includes $518,000 for the part-time faculty raise.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM

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August 22nd 2008

Liberian P/Timers Earning Better Salaries Than U.S. P/Timers

The University of Liberia Faculty and Staff Associations are threatening to get tough unless paid back salaries. Part-time faculty haven't been paid their salaries for June and July. Part-timers are demanding to be paid before the 28th of each month, and (here's the kicker) according to this piece from the Monrovia Inquirer, "and pay part-time faculty members of the university US$100.00 monthly per course as of July 1st, 2008." Thus, a part-timer at the University of Liberia would earn $1,600 for teaching two courses per year.

Liberia has a population of about 3.4 million, and the average income is $200 per year. So, $100 per month per course would put part-time faculty pay there well above the average income. There are two universities in the country. The oldest university, and the largest, is the University of Liberia, with 15,000 students and 1,000 faculty and staff.

In the United States, the median average household income is $48,200. A full-time lecturer at Portland State University, teaching the full load of 45 credit hours (15 three-credit hour courses) per year, will earn a salary of $30,420, or 63 percent of the average household income in the United States for teaching what amounts to a double full-time load, plus another three credits. (A full-time load for tenured and tenure-line faculty at Portland State is five to six courses per year.) Portland State University part-timers have been represented by their union since 1978.

Of course, Monrovia is no Portland, but at least on what they earn part-time college faculty in Liberia can afford to send their children to college in either Liberia or the United States.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 8:00 AM

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August 19th 2008

Still Talking About CUNY

I can't help myself. It's just too tempting, and no one in the union leadership at CUNY can have my chalk holders broken. As you may remember, (or not) I have written several times about CUNY's Professional Staff Congress, an affiliate of the AFT. To read my previous posts, look here, here and here. The union leadership over at CUNY is currently making an attempt to put down a revolt by adjunct members who are vehemently opposed to the proposed contract. In my opinion, that the CUNY-PSC part-time faculty members have been so vocal in pointing out the gross inequities negotiated on behalf of the full-time and part-time union members in the proposed contract represents a heartening change in business as usual at PSC-CUNY.

On the PSC-CUNY web site, various member delegates who voted on whether to recommend ratification of the contract were given 500 words to explain their votes to the membership. The entries are juicier reading than the New York Post. Here are some of the comments from delegates who voted against ratification of the contract, and from delegates who are leading a union-wide charge to defeat the proposed agreement:

I feel I should start with MIKE VOZICK, Delegate BMCC, the guy who wrote a song about why union members should vote no:

“…and we are singing, singing for our lives…”
Vote No (V-No) to reverse widening inequities which cause disunity in our labor-congress and university.
V-No to say yes to a part-timer, full-timer alliance for equity....
V-No to promote deeper re-evaluation of the assumptions and approaches of PSC decision makers toward building ongoing patterns of membership activity in growing circles of commitment, to shape win-win contexts for bargaining, starting now with workload parity (9/6 rule modification) for multi-college adjuncts....
V-No for whatever, for no reason at all, just gut sense of the way forward.
Vote ‘No’ because you want full-timers and part-timers to appreciate each other and each other’s professionalism. Take courage, compassion, and intelligence to heart – choose growth over fear – vote No.
“If I had a hammer … I would hammer out justice.”

HARRY CASON Delegate, College of Staten Island had some interesting things to say, as well:
I have heard it over and over again. The strategy of the present PSC leadership is to raise the cost of adjuncts in order to remove the incentive that low-cost part-timers offer the university....But what has actually happened in the eight years the present leadership has been pushing their strategy? Let’s start with the raising of the cost of adjuncts. To raise the cost of adjuncts, one must raise their cost relative to full-timers. This has not happened. In fact, due to our contract agreements with management, we adjuncts have actually become cheaper relative to full timers! Full timers cannot expect adjuncts to work with them to get what full timers want, without giving us something in return, and respecting us as the human beings we are.

LENNY DICK Delegate, BXCC voted no, as well. He writes:
AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL--BUILD UNITY WITHIN OUR RANKS
Aside from the gain of 100 conversion lines, the proposed settlement contains very little for adjunct members of our union. Neither seniority rules, decent health care coverage, nor pay equity has been won. In fact, the gap between the poorest members and those on top scale has widened. Winning a parental leave benefit for some PSCers is a step forward. But it is adding insult to injury to be told that the parental leave benefit will not apply to adjuncts!

SHIRLEY FRANK Delegate, York explains her no vote this way:
I voted “No” at the Delegate Assembly because I felt, and still feel, that it is important to convey a message to union leadership, and indirectly to CUNY management, that a large number of union members (particularly adjuncts) are extremely disappointed and dissatisfied with the terms of the proposed settlement. I feel that the union’s decision to focus on “competitive salaries” resulted in a contract that does nothing to address the exploitative two-tier system that has many of us so-called “part-timers” teaching essentially “full-time” workloads and still not earning a decent income, nor having any form of job security, academic freedom, or the benefits and working conditions that all members and fee-payers represented by our union should have....

It [the proposed contract] provides additional financial benefits such as $2,225,000 for “paid parental leave” (“for full-timers only”), and another $2,225,000 for “recruitment and retention enhancements” (which we can assume is also “for full-timers only”)--all money that I feel could and should have gone to those who need it most.

As I said at the Delegate Assembly, I feel that the PSC leadership is concerned about oppressed people everywhere, except those right under their own noses -- meaning the adjuncts, graduate students, and continuing education teachers who are supposed to be colleagues, who pay fair dues to be represented, but who continue to be regularly subjected to gross underpayment, second-class benefits, lack of job security, and miserable working conditions.

A contract that offers special advantages to the same people who are already relatively advantaged and no gains for those who are relatively disadvantaged** is, I feel, not one to which I can respond with anything but a “No” vote.

DOUGLAS MEDINA Alternate Delegate, HEO Chapter refutes some of the common arguments made by those who voted for ratification, and he asks some excellent questions:
....Several union brothers and sisters will essentially argue that this is the best contract we can get, considering the fiscal strain on CUNY and New York State, vis-à-vis other municipal unions. Others will claim that going back to the bargaining table will be “too risky,” given this fiscal strain. However, I submit to you that the time is now to dig-in our heels and fight back against the state and management. If not now, when? When we are able to suck our index finger and hold it up to make sure “the winds are blowing is the right direction”? As one of our sisters asked before, what is the union of your dreams? How long do we have to wait for the dream? What happens to a dream deferred?

Now, let's hear from Marcia Newfield, who represents the interests of PSC-CUNY's 5,000 active part-time faculty members within the union:

MARCIA NEWFIELD Executive Council (VP/ Part Time Personnel), BMCC writes:
The four part-time officers voted yes on the contract and sent a letter to that effect to the adjuncts which was also posted on the Delegate Assembly listserv. While we totally support the need for adjuncts to move towards parity in large increments and are aware that this contract does not do it, we believe that it is to our advantage to ratify this contract, both because of the gains that have been made and our intimate knowledge of management’s resistance to bending at this point. Some describe my saying that getting to parity will cost millions of dollars in addition to requiring a quantum shift of perspective as defeatism. Quite the contrary.

The only question is what is the best strategy to redistribute the pie and/or get a bigger pie. I think it is voting yes and collectively putting our shoulders to the wheel to gain support to pressure management to make changes, such as allowing the five schools that only pay for fourteen weeks to pay up.

Well, it turns out there's a reason Marcia's in a position to wait several years until the next contract is negotiated. Newfield earned $43,032 in her position with the union in 2007. That's significantly more than the proposed full-time salary negotiated for a PSC-CUNY part-time lecturer under the auspices of the new contract that Newfield told the union's part-timers to support. To support her decision to get behind the proposed contract, Marcia Newfield points to 100 conversion lines for adjunct faculty won in the proposed agreement.

The first line of the letter outlining the conversion line process from Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor of CUNY to Barbara Bowen, PSC-CUNY president, reads: "I write to inform you of my intention to create 100 full-time Lecturer lines over a two-year period that would be available to adjunct instructional staff. This initiative will take the following form:
* Subject to budgetary ability, I will distribute to the colleges up to 50 full-time Lecturer lines during the 2008-2009 academic year with as many as possible to be filled at the beginning of the Spring 2009 semester. The balance of the total of 100 full-time Lecturer lines would be filled in the 2009-2010 academic year."

The single most important gain for the union's 5,000 active adjunct faculty is based on whether or not the Chancellor might be able to scare up the money to fund the positions in the first place and keep funding them in subsequent years. If this sounds familiar, it's because it's how all temporary positions are created at colleges across the country; PSC-CUNY negotiators reinvented the wheel and called it a work of pure genius. If there is funding, positions may be created. If there is funding, the positions may be extended. If there is funding. If. Pardon me IF I don't find such gains credible.

The thing is that there is funding. Union leaders negotiated for that money to raise the salaries of CUNY's full-time faculty, and to fund their new and expanded family leave and retention and recruitment programs.

PSC-CUNY union leaders, including Barbara Bowen, have tried cheap scare tactics by telling members that if the proposed contract is not ratified the union will (gasp) have to negotiate a new one which may or may not be as "favorable" as the one being offered to members. Here's a news flash for PSC-CUNY union president and chief contract negotiator Barbara Bowen: That's what the members pay you to do. Union members in virtually every field where workers are unionized have sent their negotiators back to the table. They do this when the proposed contract stinks. In this case, 5,000 part-time faculty at CUNY have gotten the shaft from their own New Caucus leaders.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 3:04 PM

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August 11th 2008

Red Fish, Blue Fish, New Caucus CUNY-PSC, Old Caucus CUNY-PSC

Adjuncts at CUNY are getting the short end of the stick in the currently proposed contract, and Steve London and Barbara Bowen are acting like CUNY-PSC Old Caucus party hacks. Life is always interesting in the Big Apple.

Steve London is the First Vice President of CUNY-PSC union, AFT Local 2334, a member of the so-called "New Caucus." Barbara Bowen is the president. New Caucus candidates overthrew the "Old Caucus" in 2000, partially because the oldsters weren't paying particularly close attention to the needs of CUNY's part-time faculty. Life, however, is often stranger than fiction. As a result, the current stand-off between adjuncts at CUNY and their union leaders is stranger than, well, you decide.

The union at CUNY represents 8,000 part-timers, about 5,000 of whom are "active" in any given semester. The union represents just over 8,000 full-time faculty, and 3,798 agency fee payers. Agency fee payers pay dues, but may not vote on certain union matters. Interestingly, in the CUNY-PSC, the membership category that has grown the fastest since 2004 is that "agency fee" category. In four years, more than 1,000 CUNY faculty members have become agency fee payers.

Well, as is wont to happen in unified locals, the New Caucus leaders negotiated a new contract for the union's members that, yes, called for "Across-the-board salary increases." Then, they cleverly gave members some examples. I don't know whether they did this out of sheer hubris, or because they thought most adjuncts are too busy to actually read union summaries. Right there, bold as brass, are these examples of how the negotiated salary increase would impact member pay:

A Professor or Higher Education Officer on the top step of the salary schedule will see her salary go from $102,235 on 9/19/07 to $116,364 on 10/20/09, a 13.8% increase.
An Adjunct Lecturer on the top step will receive a 16.7% increase in his hourly rate of pay over the life of the contract, from $69.17 per contact teaching hour to $80.70 per hour, an increase of over $500 per 3-credit course.

Um....$14,000 is more than $500, right?

Turns out I am not the only one able to do basic math. Some adjuncts at CUNY got peeved, went to union leaders and expressed concern that the negotiated raise wasn't equitable. Union leaders responded by blaming CUNY administrators—always a clever ploy by people paid to bargain contracts. Here's where it gets interesting.

CUNY-PSC adjuncts unhappy with the contract—critics of the union's proposed contract— wanted to send out an email to CUNY-PSC members expressing their views. The New Caucus leadership turned them down cold. This is particularly ironic given the fact that in the "Contract Summary" prepared for members, the union won the right to use college e-mail for union communication. "Effective upon ratification of this Agreement, the PSC will be permitted to use all college electronic mail facilities for union communication – in addition to the existing right to use college mailroom facilities." So, the New Caucus gets to use CUNY email resources, but union members were denied the right to use their own union's email resources.

First Vice President Steve London was quoted as saying that, "...he agreed that adjuncts deserve more than they’ll get in this contract. He [London] said that the union is not trying to prevent anyone from communicating with anyone — but is just not allowing 'union resources' to be involved. 'Those who want the membership to vote [against the contract], they can express their views,' he said." Union resources? The union resources are funded with union dues. In fact, in 2007, union dues paid Steven London a tidy $41,324 from CUNY-PSC and NYSUT for his work, on top of his union negotiated minimum salary ($56,713-$84,902) as an Associate Professor at Brooklyn College.

As for CUNY-PSC president Barbara Bowen, she chose to sit in a corner with her fingers in her ears and sing "la,la,la,la." In her letter to members, she writes, "One reason for the high level of support the proposed contract has received is that it delivers gains in almost every area prioritized by the union for this round of bargaining." This is the kicker. Bowen writes to the membership (including the members who were told to take a long walk off the Brooklyn Bridge when they asked to use the union's email resources to communicate with fellow members): "One of the most important gains of this contract is non-economic: the union won the right to the use of all college e-mail facilities for union communication. If you remember that this year one college tried to ban union activists from using college e-mail for union messages, you will understand why this change matters."

So, if you are a union "activist," within the CUNY system the union leadership deems it very important you should be able to use college email for union messages. On the other hand, if you are union activist within the union, Barbara Bowen and Steven London believe letting members communicate with each other using "union resources" is a bad idea.

CUNY's part-time faculty members have until September 2nd to vote on the proposed contract. Let's hope a majority of the part-time members who vote send a clear message to Barbara Bowen and Steven London that the concept of the "across-the-board" pay raise is totally unacceptable. While they're at it, they might also send the clear message that trying to squelch debate and dissent among members over a hideously lop-sided contract is also totally unacceptable. Unfortunately, it's nothing new at CUNY-PSC, as members who remember the Old Caucus leadership will tell you.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 2:45 PM

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August 7th 2008

SoCafe's Business Model SoSucks

Ok, "sucks" is a totally immature way to respond to anything, but geez (insert eye rolling here and that pffffft sound), a company that wants to charge adjuncts $395 for certification in "10 core competencies?" Is that like the Ten Commandments of Adjunct Teaching?

1. I am the Dean your Dean

2. You shall have no other teaching gigs before mine

3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Dean

You get my drift.... SoCafe's 10 core competencies include:

Interact effectively with a diverse student population.
Provide student feedback in a manner that supports learning

How does one test faculty on those things in order to issue a certificate? The student feedback one I find particularly interesting, because I actually think the way we give feedback to our students is crucial in whether or not our students succeed in our courses. Faculty at cocktail parties who regale colleagues with witty tales of ripping into their students without a scrap of humanity leave me cold. Hell, they leave me hoping such faculty will choke on the olives in their martinis and stop giving the rest of us a bad name.

I am not against certification, per se. I am against this particular form of certification, because it's just a way for SoCafe's owners to make $395 from adjuncts who hope employers will give a rat's tail about such certification. Here's the truth: the adjunct who's available, and who answers the phone first is going to get the course. If the guy's who's got SoCafe certification happens to be in the bathtub when the phone rings, the department Chair is going to move right on to the next person on the adjunct roster. No questions asked.

This method of hiring sucks big time. Rather than outsource certification, college and university officials should be encouraged, pushed, shoved and threatened at briefcase point by the national faculty unions to start hiring all part-time faculty the same way full-time faculty are hired.

That change would be totally phat my fellow faculty friends.

Posted By Part-Time T. at 2:06 PM