Professors in the Gig Economy: Unionizing Adjunct Faculty in America

238 Pages·2018·5.34 MB·English

by  Kim Tolley (ed.)

Professors in the Gig Economy
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PROFESSORS IN
THE GIG ECONOMY
Unionizing Adjunct Faculty in America
EDITED BY KIM TOLLEY

Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2018 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2018
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tolley, Kimberley, editor.
Title: Professors in the gig economy : unionizing adjunct faculty in America /
edited by Kim Tolley.
Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017038117| ISBN 9781421425337 (paperback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781421425344 (electronic) | ISBN 1421425335 (paperback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 1421425343 (electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: College teachers, Part-time—Labor unions—United States. |
Universities and colleges—Faculty—Employment—United States. | BISAC:
EDUCATION / Higher. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Education. | BUSINESS &
ECONOMICS / Labor. | LAW / Labor & Employment.
Classification: LCC LB2331.72 .P78 2018 | DDC 378.1/2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038117
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
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please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected].
Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials,
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waste, whenever possible.
contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xvii
Part I THE CHANGING ACADEMIC WORKFORCE:
Influences and Outcomes
1 From Golden Era to Gig Economy: Changing Contexts
for Academic Labor in America 3
A. J. An gulo
2 Understanding the Need for Unions: Contingent Faculty Working
Conditions and the Relationship to Student Learning 27
Adrianna Kezar and T om DePaola
3 A Long History of Activism and Organizing: Contingent Faculty,
Graduate Students, and Unionization 46
Timothy Reese Cain
4 Union Organizing and the Law: Contingent Faculty and
Graduate Teaching Assistants 69
Gregory M. Saltzman
Part II UNIONIZATION IN PRIV ATE AND
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS
5 A Just Employment Approach to Adjunct Unionization:

The Georgetown Model 87
Nicholas M. Wertsch and Jos eph A. M cCartin
vi Contents
6 Unionizing Adjunct and Tenure-Track Faculty at
Notre Dame de Namur University 104
Kim Tolley, Marianne Delaporte, and L orenzo Giachetti
7 Unions, Shared Governance, and Historically
Black Colleges and Universities 123
Elizabeth K. Davenport
8 Forming a Union: The Non-Tenure Faculty Coalition, Local 6546
at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 139
Shawn Gilmore
9 Wall to Wall: Industrial Unionism at the City
University of New York, 1972–2017 153
Luke Elliott-Negri
10 California State University, East Bay: Alignment of Contingent
and Tenure-Track Faculty Interests and Goals 172
Kim Geron and Gr etchen M. R eevy
conclusion Reflections on the Possibilities and
Limitations of Collective Bargaining 187
Kim Tolley and Kr isten Edwards
Appendix 203
Contributors 207
Index 213
preface
In 2012 Kathleen Colligan, who taught for more than 30 years as a part-time
instructor at San Jose City College in California, died of cancer. Her obituary
noted, “She was the original freeway flyer, charging between several schools
to teach English classes, where she enjoyed the broad range of students she
encountered.” Colligan had worked since the 1970s as an adjunct faculty
member at the college, where she was highly regarded as a talented teacher.
After her death, her colleagues remembered her dedication. She would fre-
quently stay until late at night to grade papers. “I’m talking about 9 p.m. on the
last day of finals,” said English instructor Alice Gosak. “She gave and gave.”
Nevertheless, despite all her years of hard work and service, when Kathleen
Colligan came down with cancer in her mid-sixties, she had no health bene-
fits and no retirement savings.1
Similar stories have emerged about the underpaid part-time faculty who
teach in colleges and universities across the country. Colligan was relatively
fortunate: a sister in Texas took her in and cared for her during her final days.
Others have fared less well. Dave Heller, an adjunct philosophy instructor at
Seattle University, was living in a dilapidated boardinghouse when he died
in 2015 from an untreated thyroid condition at age 61. He had been teaching
part-time for only $18,000 a year.2 Margaret Mary Vojtko, who had taught part-
time at Duquesne University for 25 years, was destitute and nearly homeless
in Pittsburgh when she died in 2013 after a heart attack at age 83.3 Such cases
are not unusual: a 2011 study reported that adjunct faculty comprised 76 per-
cent of US faculty in colleges and universities. In 2015, researchers at the
University of California at Berkeley found that 25 percent of the nation’s part-
time faculty members were living in poverty and eligible for public assistance

programs like Medicaid, food stamps, or welfare.4
Since the 1990s, adjunct faculty members have begun to fight back, turn-
viii Preface
Contingent faculty Tenure-track faculty
1969 2009
21.7%
33.5%
66.5%
78.3%
Figure P.1. Changing Faculty Demographics in US Higher Education, 1969 and
2009. Source: Adapted from Adrianna Kezar and Daniel Maxey, “The Changing
Academic Workforce,” Trusteeship 21 (2013), http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5
/changing-academic-workforce.
ing to labor unions to improve their working conditions through collective
bargaining. “Adjuncts,” a term that includes graduate student employees and
part-time and full-time contingent faculty who are hired off the tenure track,
are not just demanding a living wage. They are also publicizing higher edu-
cation’s increasing reliance on contingent labor.5 In 1969, 78.3 percent of the
instructional staff in American colleges and universities were tenured or in
tenure-track positions, and adjunct faculty filled the remaining 21.7 percent.
By 2009, the numbers had flipped: the proportion of tenured or tenure-track
faculty had fallen to just over a third, and the proportion of adjunct faculty
had risen to 66.5 percent (see fig ure P.1).
When graduate student instructors are added to these figures, the propor-
tion of contingent instructional staff is even higher: 76 percent nationally in
2011.6 Some claim that this is simply a reflection of the law of supply and
demand; universities continue to churn out too many PhDs for an increas-
ingly limited number of tenure-track positions in higher education. Others
argue that this is part of a larger structural shift related to the privatization
and corporatization of the university, a development that harms not only the
academic professions and students’ learning but also society as a whole.7
During the last few decades, many professional organizations, including

the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), have criticized
the growing reliance on contingent and part-time faculty in higher education.
Preface ix
Some professional organizations, including the American Historical Associ-
ation, the American Philological Association, the American Studies Associa-
tion, the Modern Language Association, and the National Council of Teach-
ers of English, have tried to raise the profile of contingent faculty by issuing
special rewards to scholars off the tenure track. Efforts to improve working
conditions have included recommendations for long-term and renewable
contracts, some form of teaching tenure, and increased access to professional
development opportunities. Nevertheless, as scholars have noted, improve-
ments to working conditions for contingent faculty have been few and far
between, prompting faculty on many campuses to consider unionizing.8
After more than 50 years of declining memberships, some of the nation’s
largest labor unions, including the American Federation of Teachers, the Na-
tional Education Association, the United Auto Workers (UAW), the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU), and the United Steelworkers, have
reached out to help adjunct faculty organize. The UAW helped graduate stu-
dent instructors at Columbia University wage a campaign to affiliate with the
union. After the National Labor Relations Board ruled on August 23, 2016,
that graduate students who work as research assistants and teachers at private
universities can join or form unions, unions such as the United Electrical
Workers, the Communications Workers of America, and the Hotel Employ-
ees and Restaurant Employees Union began providing support to students in
around 40 institutions engaged in collective bargaining or legal challenges.9
The shift toward organizing in higher education has helped traditional unions
staunch a long decline in memberships. National population survey data show
that in 2014 and 2015, the number of union members stabilized compared to
previous years, with some of the highest unionization rates in education,
training, and library occupations. The SEIU has run one of the most aggres-
sive campaigns to unionize adjunct faculty to date; three years after SEIU’s
launch of the national Faculty Forward campaign in 2013, contingent faculty
at more than 40 colleges and universities had voted to affiliate with the union,
often despite fierce opposition from employers.10
This book explores the history, context, processes, and outcomes of union-
ization among adjunct faculty. The chapters in this volume address the fol-
lowing questions: Why have colleges and universities come to rely so heavily
on contingent faculty, and what have been the results? How have federal and
state laws influenced efforts to unionize adjunct faculty? What happens after

unionization: How has collective bargaining affected faculty working condi-
tions and participation in shared governance? How have relations among