I came across this post via my EMU feed: “EMU Lecturers Halt ‘Visits’ as President Martin Shows Sincerity” is a post on Ken Wachsberger’s Blog, and it’s about some of the tension in the on-going discussions of part-time faculty unionizing. Here’s the opening paragraphs:
Members of Eastern Michigan University’s Adjunct Lecturers’ Organizing Committee (ALOC) and Students for an Ethical and Participatory Education (SEPE) spoke to over 60 campus folks face-to-face in three days last week. Forty of those who were contacted committed to participate in the ALOC/SEPE coalition “office visit” days that were planned Thursday and Friday to get EMU President Sue Martin back to the negotiating table. This new strategy reflects the growing frustration that lecturers have been feeling as their righteous desire to expand EMUFT membership to all lecturers, full-timers and part-timers, have continued to be ignored by an intransigent administration.
But in a late-breaking development, ALOC leadership called a temporary halt to the visits after Michigan AFT President David Hecker’s noon-time phone call with President Martin on Wednesday. EMUFT is a chapter of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). David Hecker is one of the great union presidents of our time. He is rock solid behind the workers he represents but he can talk to leaders of the other side in a way that commands respect, not hostility.
I have to be honest: I have mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand, I have sympathy with the situation part-timers are in with less than adequate pay, a lack of benefits, essentially no job security, etc. They should be treated better. One of the ways that I think EMU has tried to minimize this– at least in my department– is to hire as many full-time (and unionized) lecturers as possible.
On the other hand, part-time instructors are ideally “temps:” they generally aren’t hired with the same rigor we apply to hiring tenure-track faculty or lecturers. It seems to me that the ideal situation would be to change long-standing part-time instructor lines into lecturer lines rather than to institutionalize part-time status. I know that both the faculty and lecturer unions support the part-timers’ efforts, but quite frankly, I wonder if unionizing part-timers might not ultimately lead to a further erosion of faculty and lecturer lines.
I have to disagree and state that the administrations position all along based on advice from high priced outside attorneys (sound familiar) has been to stall and try to conquer and divide the faculty and lecturer community. This is about being treated fairly and given the right to bargain over the same issues other organized staff have at Eastern. The reason President Martin has to address this is the people below her are giving her bad advice which has doomed other Presidents at Eastern. I find it interesting that we hired all of these high priced communication specialists but yet we hear nothing on the EMU website or other sources of official communication on this issue. Maybe Jeff Larcom can take some time away from the trivial stuff he writes about to address this serious issue. What everyone should be taking note of an especially the faculty is this is what you have to look forward to in the fall if the same people advising President Martin on this issue keep advising her.
Well, if the part-time lecturers are unhappy with pay, benefits, etc., why are they still teaching?
In all honesty, I find the unionization of faculty to be a bit ridiculous. I’ve worked at both union and non-union universities and I really can’t see much difference in the two except in unionized schools, there tends to be more bitterness with administration.
Being a part-time worker is a lifestyle choice. Both the employee and employer get something from this relationship. The employee has more time to pursue other things while the employer gets the benefit of reduced labor costs and specialist in a given field. If you want the perks of a full time employee then go do the necessary things to qualify for a full-time position.
I don’t know the numbers on this but the few part-timers I know have other full-time jobs. They are teaching because they enjoy it and are experts in their field. I’m sure the extra cash doesn’t hurt.
I think I’m going to have to chime in here and support sitedad’s position a bit. No, I’m not faculty (adjunct, lecturer or otherwise)…I’m a PT…so really this doesn’t affect me directly. But I think that it’s quite ludicrous that it’s even conceivable for the part-time lecturers to unionize. For this University to have a prayer of functioning well, there HAS to be a way of hiring fill-in people to teach classes that just can’t be taught by the full-time professors or lecturers in a given semester. To have the ability to hire people on a class-by-class basis makes a LOT more sense than spending the money on a full time person, with benefits, if there just aren’t enough students in a given program to justify it – or if the scheduling works out weird in a given semester. If the part timers get to unionize, costs will soar for these types of classes, so there will be less of them – and then students will be stuck with an even more difficult time graduating on time, get frustrated and leave. Either that, or tuition will go up even more than it would, which is also bad for new-student enrollment and retention alike. Part timers aren’t (or shouldn’t) be in this for a career. If that’s what they want, they need to beef up their CV and start applying for full-time positions. How many other part-time jobs come with full benefits, extreme job security, etc?
In a way, it seems like this may be an abuse of the organized labor system, and another symptom of the “entitlement” culture that we’re living in. Many people, if not most, have it in their mind that they’re entitled to this, that or the other thing without having to put in the work or effort to get it. I’m not saying that part-time lecturers don’t work, but they misunderstand their role on a college campus. In an ideal world, all of the teaching positions on campus would be filled by tenure-track faculty, and maybe some full-time lecturers. Part timers fill in the gaps. They’re vital for that purpose, but not the ideal. As mentioned, their qualifications aren’t as rigorous, it’s hit or miss when they’re needed to teach what, and franky, I don’t think it’s appropriate for the University to invest heavily in someone that may teach a class here or there from year to year in the way they do with any full-time employee – faculty or otherwise. Part timers necessarily come and go, full-timers have the responsibility of really shaping the institution.
There’s my long-winded rant on this issue. I could go on – many of us have no right to be unionized – I think it does EMU more harm than good for so many employee groups to be so heavily unionized. But that’s a different discussion for a different time.
Just to keep the focus where it needs to be, let me say this: ALOC / EMU FT is simply trying to have an election according to the guidelines established by MERC. How we decide to organize is really up to us – no one else. If our union is an organization of all lecturers, that’s our decision. What we are requesting is that the administration recognize that the number of credit hours taught in a given term should not be the basis for being able to participate in the election.
We have not even decided what to ask for once we get to the point of collective bargaining. In all likelihood we would not be asking for full-benefits, just fair treatment when it comes to pay, appointment notifications, etc. It is putting the cart before the horse to preemptively strike down requests that have not even been made.
As for the “right to organize,” or associate for our mutual benefit, that is well established in American law – no need to go there. As for it being an abuse of the “entitlement culture” as “Staffer” suggests, I can only speak for myself. I am a pretty conservative Republican leaning toward Libertarian. I have been called a “progressive” Republican too.
In most situations I am in favor of “open” shops and the right to work (sorry Greg, Jon, and David!), and my construction business is unaffiliated. I would typically be the last person one would think of as supporting far-reaching entitlement programs.
However, when it comes to this situation I am advocating an organized approach because the university’s treatment of adjuncts has been so helter-skelter and many of us – faculty and students – are negatively impacted by it. Without a collective bargaining approach we will simply lurch forward and backward.
I for one do not believe that we are at this point due to ill-intent on anyone’s part; history has a way of unfolding and bringing us to decision points. The question we face, I think, is whether the current way of doing business works well enough to provide for the needs of all of the various stakeholders. Our answer, obviously, is that we do not think it works well enough and that it is time to make it work better.
Can anyone else suggest a way to improve the situation without collective bargaining?
My friend Steven wants to be honest. This is a good beginning so I challenge him to go to the next level. Honestly speaking, is society moving in the direction of hiring more full-time employees or fewer? Check any industry or profession and you will find the same answer: more full-timers who receive fair wages and benefits being laid off and replaced by part-timers who receive inadequate wages and few or no benefits. This has nothing to do with flexibility, as one commentator notes, and more to do with cutting pay of the workers to have more to spend on administrators and officers, not to mention their high-priced lawyers. In academia, we have the sorry situation of teachers who have been trained in our best institutions for their careers but are unable to find full-time work. So instead, they teach part time at multiple universities. The time they could be spending meeting with students in their offices they spend instead racing from one university or college to another so they can make all the classes in their patchwork schedules. Steven has the financial freedom to fantasize about ideal situations because—and only because—he is protected by his union but lecturers are too busy driving from campus to campus. I suspect nine years ago, he would have been saying the same thing about full-time lecturers, who didn’t gain bargaining rights until 2001 after a nine-year struggle.
Also, Steven has singlehandedly, and I’m sure accidentally because I know he loves EMU, indicted the entire university with his charge that part-timers are hired with less rigor than is applied to other educators. As I noted in an earlier blog (A “Nice Experience” or a Job: EMU Lecturers Say Part-Timers Need a Union, Too), “EMU employs every semester approximately 450 part-time adjunct lecturers, who teach over one-third of all classes.” So what he seems to be saying is that students in over one-third of all classes are receiving a substandard education. As one who also loves EMU—while nevertheless being embarrassed by the irrationality and hostility of our administration—I am personally offended.
John Drake also invokes “honesty” but he’s swimming in the shallow end of the pool. If he swims deeper, he’ll find bitterness in both union and non-union settings, anywhere workers are being denied their dignity.
Well, many thoughts here:
* Like a lot of faculty, I have somewhat ambivalent feelings about the faculty union. They too often seem in crisis mode, I sometimes feel like they are trying to negotiate in a way that is at odds with the academic mission, and I think there are some inequities within the faculty itself that the union’s practices perpetuate. Negotiating “across the board” increases in pay benefits the highest paid faculty a heck of a lot more than those on the bottom end of the scale.
Having said that, I fully support the union because it makes the “rules for work” very clear and it offers a mode to grieve problems. Talk to people who work at non-unionized institutions and you immediately see how different things are here. And in these less than certain financial times, I’d much rather have a faculty union than not.
In other words, on the one hand, I’m in the union because I don’t have much of a choice. On the other hand, I am generally happy about this.
* I think Peter raises some really good points about the problematic way that EMU and just about every other university/community college in this country hires part-time instructors. At a minimum, I think part-timers ought to have access to benefits and I think that the practice of hiring people as “part-time in name only” — that is, the part-timer at EMU who is teaching the same load as a lecturer but who does not have access to the level of pay or the benefits– ought to be ended.
But the problem I have about trying to solve this with collective bargaining is the “part-time” part of part-time faculty. I mean, how does that work for employees who are, by definition, “temporary?” How do you structure collective bargaining in such a fashion that both gives part-time workers a fair deal but that simultaneously maintains their part-time status? I suppose this is possible– it happens with migrant workers, right?– but I’m not sure it’s possible with people teaching in universities and community colleges.
* As for the what Ken is getting at: first, I’ve always supported the lecturer’s union, although with the same sort of reservations I have about the faculty union. In my department, where we employ a lot of lecturers (and not as many part-timers as we once did) to teach first year writing and some other courses. All things considered, I think these are pretty good positions for both the individuals and the institution.
Second, the process for hiring faculty is CLEARLY more rigorous than that for hiring part-timers, and this is not a critique of EMU since this process works pretty much the same way everywhere, at the very best and very worst institutions in the country. I’ll use my program and first year writing as an example: I think it’s fair to say that most of the people who we hire to teach part-time have an MA and a few years worth of experience teaching (many/most were MA students at EMU), and they are hired locally and in a very ad hoc process. There is some variation here– we do have some part-timers with more experience and degrees– but I think this is the basic profile, and the “last minute” nature of the process cannot be forgotten. Literally, people are called up by the department head and offered a job over the phone and on the spot, sometimes right before the classes begin. There is never any sort of interview process for hiring part-timers in my department.
In contrast, hiring tenure-track faculty in my program is extremely rigorous, and I have recent first-hand experience at this since I chaired a search committee last year. First, there is a committee of faculty in the area who review applicants, which are gathered by publishing ads in things like the CHE and discipline-specific sources. Second, the applicants for this one job come from all over the U.S. Third, each and every one of the candidates we interviewed via phone had at a minimum a) a PhD (either in hand or with a defense scheduled/in sight, b) years (often decades) of teaching experience, c) publications and presentations at national conferences, and d) boatloads of recommendations. Fourth, from this group and only after phone interviews, we brought people to campus where they gave presentations, were subjected to more scrutiny by the faculty and administrators, were further interviewed, etc., etc. This process literally took a year, not to mention the years we spent asking for this search in the first place.
In short, it is quite literally the opposite of the way that EMU– and every other community college and university in this country– hires part-timers. And Ken and others, this is why full-time and tenure-track faculty are so adamant that the best way to assure quality instruction and research in universities is to hire people through this process and with the potential for tenure. In my view, the argument should not be “we should have stronger union support for the 450 or so (or whatever the number is) part-timers EMU employs.” Rather, the argument should be “we should not be hiring 450 or so (or whatever the number is) part-timers at EMU and instead should hire more demonstrably qualified tenure-track people.”
One last thing: I think that all of higher education should do everything it can to discourage the model that Ken mentions here of trying to create a full-time job by teaching part-time at four or five different institutions. There are a host of problems with that I’m not going to go into now. But basically, my view is that if a part-timer is teaching a class or two in addition to some other career/avocation, that’s great. On the other hand, if a part-timer is trying to make a full-time job by racing between different campuses, well, I think that person ought to think about a different line of work.
I, for one, am not interested in teaching full-time at EMU or anywhere else – sounds too much like work! Seriously though, I don’t think it works to say that someone who regularly teaches at EMU – in my case for the last five years, Ken W for the last twenty – is “temporary.” I do think that is an important question to be addressed, i.e., how long does a part-time lecturer have to work before they are eligible for the benefits afforded (hopefully) by membership in the EMU FT and a collective bargaining agreement?
On another note, if the thought of our organizing and collectively bargaining with the university is causing paroxysms among certain administrative financial folks, I can’t imagine what the thought of hiring 100 – 200 more tenure track faculty would do!
The distinction between the two hiring processes that Sitedad describes is pretty accurate as far as I know but has it’s own historical basis and reflects a certain set of prejudices that I will not go into here (in the name of solidarity!) But adjuncts are part of the higher education system and,I imagine, always will be. I don’t think we are going away any time soon.
In regard to our qualifications, let it suffice for me to say, that I decided not to pursue a PhD for specific reasons but chose a career in business instead. And with all deference to my highly degreed colleagues, I bring a lifetime of real-world business experience to the classroom that my students always consider highly beneficial – or at least they say so.
This is clearly not of the same benefit in all classrooms or departments but it is, I think, one of the major contributions that we make. The university would be poorer for our absence IMHO.
I’m not trying to suggest that part-timers aren’t qualified; for the most part, I think they are. I was just trying to suggest that the hiring process is very different, and, in my field at least, the expectations in terms of degrees and experience is very VERY different. I can easily imagine that not being quite the same for teaching business, Peter.
I also don’t think the issue is so much “time served” in terms of years but rather about the amount of work. A lot of places that are unionized– places like Kroger’s, for example– and places that are not unionized– places like Whole Foods or Starbucks, for example– give benefits of various sorts to full-time employees. However, you have to work a certain number of hours a week to be eligible for benefits. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong about this, but I want to say that most places require you to work at least half-time before you can start getting in on the benefits.
So, if someone is working at Whole Foods for 20 years but only for 5 hours a week, I’m not so sure they are entitled to union protection/union benefits. And if someone is working at EMU for 20 years but only teaching one class a term, I’m not so sure they are entitled to union protection/union benefits either.
But I will grant you that “temporary” is not the right word for someone who has worked someplace for 20 years, even if that work was part-time.
All the more reason why there needs to be an open two-way discussion between those who represent the university and those who represent full and part-time workers. Terms and definitions need to be clarified.
I just don’t think it works well for the decisions and definitions to be coming from one direction. The discussions don’t have to be polemical, just pragmatic. Individually and as a group we provide something the university needs therefore we want to have a collective say in the way we do business together. Seems simple to me and creates a level playing field – so to speak.
In cases of other part-time workers, like nurses at Saint Joe’s (non-union), they are eligible for benefits on a pro-rated scale. This is a good option. They have other serious labor problems there but that is another discussion.
I agree with what you’re getting at here, Peter. It would be ideal for some agreement about terms, and there should be some room to talk about this. I wonder if a better approach though would be working with the lecturer’s union, for example.
I’m pleased to see that my original entry on my blog site has generated such discussion here. Thanks to Steven for posting his response even though he wasn’t 100% laudatory. In an academic community, if we had total 100% agreement on every issue we would all owe it to society to turn in our credentials and let real scholars take over.
I’m not going to focus on areas of disagreement here. Others have already presented what would have been my responses. But I would like to point out an area that I think has general agreement coming from both pro-union and anti-union (or indifferent-to-union) arguments and that is that there should be more full-time jobs. Although some part-timers do go the part-time route out of personal desire—and they deserve union representation for their contributions—many others indeed want to teach full time without then having to work at other jobs to supplement an inadequate income but are denied the opportunity.
As one who was involved in the original nine-year struggle that created EMUFT, I never wanted to create MORE part-time positions. Rather, I recognized that the university was not replacing retiring full-timers who received benefits with other such full-timers; instead they were replacing them with part-timers who didn’t receive benefits. That practice was unfair and lecturers could do nothing about it until they won the right to bargain collectively. It was well known that lecturers often were assigned credit loads just low enough (based on the AAUP contract) to not qualify them to receive benefits. That’s why they had to pick up additional classes on other campuses. I opposed this practice while also arguing that being a lecturer should be a path to full-time tenure positions, not the dead end that it was.
As far as the higher standards for hiring tenure-track faculty, I find it appalling that anyone would justify low standards for hiring and use that as an argument for anything except why students should look elsewhere for their education. But if this is the route EMU wants to go, in the spirit of solidarity I offer the following promotional slogan to accompany the equally compelling “Education First”: “Students! Come to EMU where one-third of your classes are taught by last-minute, crack-filling, low-standard workers.”
The fact is that many lecturers teach the same classes as tenured faculty—and, in fact, have far more impressive real-world credentials. They merely receive lower pay and fewer benefits. And the university is not hiring 450 lecturers a semester just for flexibility or to fill cracks in the larger schedule. They are doing it as a deliberate policy to balance the budget on the backs of the lecturers.
What I would argue, however, is that the perceived standards are too often misleading and artificial. As a long-time full-time writer, editor, and veteran of the academic publishing profession (www.azenphonypress.com), I know more about the publish-or-perish scam than most academics. And as a long-time book contract adviser for the National Writers Union (another union of largely part-timers: http://www.nwu.org), specializing in academic press contracts, I know that academics receive by far the worst book contracts in all of publishing and don’t even know it because they are under such pressure to get a byline at any cost. The result rips them off, brings down the professional pay standards for other writers who don’t benefit from tenure, and does nothing to benefit students. But perhaps that’s a discussion for a different thread.
For now I will say that lecturers certainly are not advocates of more part-time positions or low hiring standards. We are only saying that once the university hires us it must treat us fairly and with dignity. To date it is not.
Well said Ken. And Sitedad, it is the lecturers union that we are working through if that has not already been made clear.
As for what Ken said about our teaching classes that TT faculty teach, that is true. I have taught graduate and undergrad classes not only because there was a need – not just for entry level instruction – but because of the perspective and experience I brought to the class.
And, I might add, the results were so well received that we were lauded by President Martin for the way the class – a practicum – made a tangible connection with the Detroit community’s need for adaptive reuse of existing institutional buildings.
Well, we will have to continue to agree to disagree about the comparative qualifications of faculty versus lectures versus part-timers. I stand by what I said before about the hiring practices for faculty versus part-timers in my department. I have no problem with lecturers or part-timers applying for tenure-track jobs, but that doesn’t mean they should get those jobs just because they are here. Oh, and I wasn’t aware that this is really being done in connection with the lectuer’s union; everything that I had seen suggested it was a new bargaining unit.