Uber, Adjuncts and Exploitation: The Same Old Thing (Let's Fight!)

BY AARON BARLOW Jim Hightower, discussing the Uber “defeat” in Austin, TX, writes about the “gig economy”: This “alternative work arrangement” is not a futuristic concept — it’s already here and spreading fast. And it’s not just ride-hiring gigs either. Some 16 percent of U.S. workers are now in this on-call, temporary, part-time, low-pay, you’re-on-your-own…

COCAL Updates

COCAL is the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, a nearly 20 year old network of contingent activists and their organizations that does a conference (now tri-national – USA, CAN (including QBC) , and  MEX) every other year, usually in August. It also sponsors a listserv, called ADJ-L, and has an International Advisory Committee and a…

COCAL Updates

COCAL is the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, a nearly 20 year old network of contingent activists and their organizations that does a conference (now tri-national – USA, CAN (including QBC) , and  MEX) every other year, usually in August. It also sponsors a listserv, called ADJ-L, and has an International Advisory Committee and a…

Colorado Community College AAUP Fighting for “Adjunct” Faculty

The following statement was released today by the Colorado Community Colleges AAUP: Alarmed by heartbreaking requests from their teaching colleagues for food, health-care, beds, housing, help with shut-off notices from the Xcel Energy, etc., the faculty majority in the state’s most financially secure system of colleges asked the State Board of Community Colleges and Occupational…

Marco Rubio, Adjunct Professor?

BY HANK REICHMAN Faculty members at Florida International University (FIU) are asking some tough questions about the university’s employment of GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio.  At a Faculty Senate meeting last month senators fired question after question about Rubio’s teaching position to University Provost Ken Furton.  David Park, associate professor in Advertising and Public…

“Not Contractually Obligated”

BY ANNA PEAK Suggest that contingent faculty deserve equal pay, and someone is sure to tell you, in smugly reasonable tones, that while contingent faculty deserve better pay they do not deserve equal pay because, after all, tenure-stream professors are contractually obligated to publish, serve, and teach advanced courses, while contingent professors — those lucky…

Loyola Adjuncts Vote to Affiliate with S.E.I.U.

BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN Loyola University Chicago adjuncts voted January 27 to unionise by a vote of 142-82, They will be represented by the Service Employees International Union (S.E.I.U.) Local 73. Unlike other Roman Catholic Universities such as Manhattan College, Saint Xavier and Duquesne, the Loyola University administration, while opposing it, used tools of persuasion such…

COCAL Updates

BY MARTIN KICH COCAL is the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, a nearly 20 year old network of contingent activists and their organizations that does a conference (now tri-national – USA, CAN (including QBC), and  MEX) every other year, usually in August. It also sponsors a listserv, called ADJ-L, and has an International Advisory Committee…