Michele Cheung, longtime PATFA member and grievance officer, just returned from the April 11-13 American Federation of Teachers’ higher education conference in Baltimore. Here are her observations:
I attended the AFT's national conference on higher education to learn how our union affiliation can serve adjuncts’ needs here in Maine. Briefly, the wider view of where our activism sits compared to other units in which adjuncts participate across the nation is less than optimal. The academic unions that fare best have the power of acting as one: they embrace full and part-time faculty, academic support staff and graduate educators in one unit or represent state and community colleges in an entire state or large region. They cannot be pitted against each other.
On the other hand, we adjuncts have a union and have secured benefits other units and would-be units are still dreaming of in, for example, right-to-work states. If we suffer from a balkanized labor unit picture, we can work to behave as one unit through close contact and solidarity with the other units associated with our school.
One message that came through clearly in all the adjunct-focused workshops I attended is the importance of working with students to promote adjunct issues. First, in pure pr terms, the public doesn’t really care whether adjuncts are paid equitably with full-time faculty for comparable work, or whether we receive institutional support such as offices, training, benefits or minimal job security to let us focus on teaching students. The public doesn’t even know what adjuncts are in any detail and the job of bringing them up to speed is daunting.
But the public, especially parents, do know and care about students, and already understand that students are paying more in cash and debt for less. They already recognize some of the things we want as things they want for their children going to college: better student-faculty ratios, low faculty turnover, availability and continuity of staff and programs. “Career” paths for adjuncts with all that goes with them help with all those issues. Arguing for students is arguing for us, but students are so much easier for the public to relate to.
Second, students have tremendous energy. After the announcement of the closings and cuts, USM students were steps ahead of us in organizing campus and street protests, in reaching out to university-associated as well local labor organizations, and in deploying up-to-speed and agile communications in both traditional and social media. They also understand that the current cuts are short-changing them. And they’re mad about it.
Finally, they are our heirs in activism and while PATFA currently offers scholarships for students, I propose that we work more directly with them, perhaps in the form of internships. In exchange for our experience and familiarity with the issues, the institution, the legislature and our existing connections, we have everything to gain from their familiarity with current media and organizing tactics, their vibrant outrage at the same injustices that impinge on us, and their claims on us to help them achieve a better world together.