BY TOM DISCENNA AND AMY POLLARD
Photo by Amy Pollard of the back of the Oakland University AAUP chapter t-shirt.
Through no fault of the AAUP, its slogan “One Hundred Years, One Faculty” is too often belied in practice. The effect of state labor law, historical exigencies, and deeply entrenched attitudes has meant that in many places tenure-track (TT) and non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty are organized in separate unions. In the state of Michigan, for instance, only one of the four AAUP collective bargaining chapters represents both adjuncts and tenure-ladder faculty. Our Oakland University chapter is one of the oldest collective bargaining chapters in the AAUP and has included TT and NTT faculty from the very beginning. This inclusion has meant that a category of NTT faculty (called Special Lecturers in the peculiar parlance of our contract) at OU receive slightly better benefits than their peers at other institutions. In addition to above-market wages, the contract also contains a graduated pay-scale for adjuncts with more seniority, longer-term contracts, and a university contribution to health insurance.
It has not meant, however, that Oakland has been some kind of contingent workers’ paradise.
While the wages are above market, the market is still abysmal and the pay is still only a fraction of TT salaries. A longer term contract is not tenure and the meager benefits continue to leave a large portion of medical insurance coverage unpaid and entirely fail to provide for retirement as well. In addition, the usual indignities suffered by adjuncts across the country plague NTT faculty at Oakland, including a lack of access to resources like office space, no voice in university governance, and an attitude of disrespect from administrators and faculty peers. A particularly telling symbol of these indignities is that NTT faculty cannot be contacted (by email or phone) through the university’s online directory.
So, it is all the more remarkable that our OU AAUP chapter elected NTT Special Lecturer Amy Pollard as our new president. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the only example of a combined faculty chapter to be led by an NTT. Dr. Pollard has been a tireless worker on behalf of faculty, serving first as an NTT representative to the union’s Advisory Forum, then as at-large representative of adjuncts to the union Executive Committee, and, for the last year, as vice-president of the chapter. She has been instrumental in the Oakland chapter’s recent Classroom Safety Initiative, working with faculty and students to design, purchase, and distribute the hockey pucks that attracted national media attention (read about this initiative in Academe) and, perhaps more importantly, organizing training sessions with faculty and the university police. Her election to the presidency is testament to her powerful voice on behalf of all faculty and the values we cherish: academic freedom, shared governance, and fair treatment in the workplace.
This groundbreaking presidency also testifies to the crucial contributions that NTT faculty make to the university and to the union. Too often faculty, at least tacitly, participate in the divide-and-conquer tactics that university administrations employ to empower themselves and weaken the universities they should be serving. We are proud that our faculty has seen fit to choose a new path to solidarity. The election of Dr. Pollard to lead the entire faculty shows both how important the new faculty majority is to the university as well as how vital it is that faculty stand together, across whatever barriers that separate them, to resist the further erosion of higher education.
Of course, you still can’t reach her on the university’s directory.
Guest blogger Tom Discenna is a professor of communication at Oakland University and the past president of the Oakland University AAUP. Guest blogger Amy Pollard is a special lecturer of English at Oakland University and the president of the Oakland University AAUP.
In the case of the City University of New York system, adjuncts and full-time professors ARE in the same union — and that is the problem for “contingent” employees. For one, the tenured professors tend to dominate all matters, particularly negotiations about wages and working conditions. Second, BY UNION CONTRACT, adjuncts do not have Academic Freedom — or even Freedom of Speech — and can be fired (or not renewed) without cause.
That union, PSC, went for 5 years without a contract (or raises), continually marching up to Albany for fruitless demonstrations, until someone had the bright idea to call for a strike vote (Duh!). Almost immediately, the Legislature and Governor were willing to bargain. (The contract called for 1% increases over the 5-year period. Big deal. And no change in adjunct status!)
While consolidating adjunct union representation with tenure-track faculty may seem like a beneficial idea IN THEORY, in practice, it must be done with great care — in order to not further subjugate part-timers.
For my case study, have a look at this:
https://www.academia.edu/23593134/A_Leftist_Critique_of_Political_Correctness_Gone_Amok_–_Revised_and_Updated
Thanks, Frank, for this useful perspective. The right size/definition of a bargaining unit is complicated, and there are perils everywhere. I’m relatively new to thinking about it, but my general sense is that the highest priority is that the most contingent ARE represented – but how best to do it…
Comments above are both very relevant. On the issue of a joint unit/union electing a contingent president, this is truly rare, and perhaps unprecedented inkAAUP bargaining units, but not unprecedented overall. A few CA CC locals in AFT/CFT have done so over the years, as has the independent unit at Santa Monica College. At AFT 2121 at City College of SF, we have not had a contingent president (though we nearly did once) but most of our recent presidents 5 have been former contingent activists and that is because of our upgrading article in our contract that has insured that most FTTT hired have gone to in-house contingents and that has, over the years, made a sea change in the culture and politics of both the union and the institution. We are now, of course, in the middle of a big fight against downsizing, which always hits the contingents (all part-timers in CA CC’s) the hardest.