Letter to Jill Biden: help end abuse of fellow part time faculty

Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, is easily the most well-known adjunct faculty member in America today, which is why the Part Time Faculty committee of the California Federation of Teachers sent her the following letter, asking for her help:

Dear Dr. Biden,

The members of the Part Time Faculty Committee of the California Federation of Teachers represents many of the 45,000 part time and non-tenure track faculty throughout our state. Nationally, 70-80% of community college faculty are part time or non-tenure track. At four year schools, 25-35% are non-tenure track.

In your speech at UNESCO 2009 World Conference on Higher Educatin, you said you were "grateful for the opportunity to spread the word about the valuable contribution community colleges make in the United States." We hope you will be equally eager to help end the economic abuse of those adjunct faculty who dedicate their careers to teaching in community colleges.

As a part time faculty member yourself, you have no doubt seen for yourself the economic abuse of part time and an non-tenure track faculty. In some districts, we earn as little as 25% as much per class  as our full time tenure track colleagues, are often denied health insurance or other benefits, and rarely have any job security. Here in California, community college part time faculty have to drive long distances to patch together jobs in multiple districts to earn a living.

Instructors wh have to run from one campus to another to make enough money to survive are going to be less available to their students outside of class, no matter what their good intentions.

No one who enters education expects to get rich in the teaching profession, but is it too much to ask that those who teach college, a job that requires a masters degree or Ph.D., at least get the same job security and benefits as those who teach K-12? And when we do choose to teach part time, shouldn't there be ONE pay scale since we are required to have the same qualifications as our full time colleagues?

What are we teaching our students about the value of higher education when those who make a career of providing it struggle to make a living?

We have tried to reform this unfair system for decades, but now we are in a unique point in history with a Democratic President and Congress, and reforming mood in the country, as President Obama has shown with his recent community college initiative. At the same time, those schools need a firm hand to prevent new funding from going to administrative bloat and six figure salaries for managers while those who actually teach are denied a living wage, health care, and academic freedom through job security.

Your stature as a public figure and status as a part time instructor could attract much needed attention and help prod change if you were to advocate on our behalf.

Therefore, we would like to request your support in promoting national legislation requiring the following:

• Every college or university have at least three-fourths of their faculty members be full time, tenure track employees.

• Part-time faculty get the same pay per class as their full-time peers if they have achieved the same qualifications and length of service.

• Part-time, nontenure-track faculty be granted proportionate benefits compared to their full-time, tenure-track peers.

• At universities, a tenure track should exist for teaching faculty, not just research faculty.

If our country truly values education, it cannot continue to treat those who dedicate their lives to delivering it as second class citizens.

Sincerely,

Phyllis Eckler, Chair
Part-Time Committee
California Federation of Teachers

We are still hoping for a reply.

In the meantime, if you're an adjunct yourself or sympathetic to our cause, you could contact your senators and congressman and ask them for at least those four points in it as part of an amendment to the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009.

You could also write Dr. Biden yourself and tell her what your life as an adjunct has been like at:

Jill Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500


NOTE: The AFT FACE webpage has also posted an article on the Biden letter.

 

New Majority Faculty collecting stories from part time, contingent, and other non-tenure track higher ed faculty

There's a new NATIONAL group for adjuncts, part timers, contingent faculty, and whatever else colleges and universities call the instructors who do most of the teaching but get few of benefits like job security, equal pay, and often not even health insurance.

They want to hear your story about being an adjunct, and start to figure out what we can do together to change things.

You can post on Youtube, in response to this this video:

(click pic to see flick)

Here's sort of what they're looking for (sound track and other production optional):

INSIDE HIRING: the parable of the faithful girlfriend not chosen as a wife

Once there was a man who was pretty successful in life, but he could not have done it without his faithful girlfriend. She fixed his breakfast, washed his clothes, took care of him when he was sick, bore his children and raised them well, and even helped him with his work when he fell behind.

She was wife in all but name and benefits. She didn't get on his health insurance, would inherit nothing when he dies, and when he went on vacation, he wouldn't take her.

One day, he announced that he wanted to finally get married. The girlfriend was giddy and asked, "When do I get the ring?"

"Well," he said, "I don't know that I'm going to marry YOU. But you are welcome to compete for the position. Just come down to the Harem Hut tomorrow.

When she arrived, she found that it was a strip club. The other women dancing in g-strings were young and thin and sleek, but the girlfriend had stretch marks from having the man's children and she had put on weight because she had often skipped going to the gym to help him catch up on his work. And when it was her turn to dance, she moved awkwardly about the stage in a manner that was hardly seductive at all, especially compared to the young women who still danced every night.

Then the man questioned all the women about how they would keep house and raise his children. The young women all said they would keep his as spotless as an operating room and his children would grow up to be presidents and Nobel Prize winning scientists. This pleased the man very much. When he asked his girlfriend of many years the same questions, "You know how I would clean your house because you have seen it every day. You know how I would raise your children because I already have. I don't know if any of them will win the Nobel Prize or be president, but they seem to be happy people, more successful than you or I, and they will care for us in our old age." Her answers were not as impressive, but undeniably true. Nonetheless, the man refused to judge based on what he had seen with his own eyes, and only take into account what the contestants said.

And so the man chose one of the young women and not the girlfriend who had served him faithfully for many years.

Within six months, the young woman had drained his bank accounts, stolen his car, filed for divorce, and sold one of his kidneys.

He called the girlfriend to his side and said, "I must find another wife. Give me a ride to the Harem Hut."

"Don't you think this a stupid way to choose a wife?" she said in exasperation.

"Nonsense," he said. "This is the best way to do it. Most of the young girls do not betray the men who choose them and sell their kidneys."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to choose me since I have served you faithfully for years?" she said.

"I would have," he said, "If you had answered the questions more artfully, lost some weight, and brushed up on your dance steps. But you are welcome to try again. Some of my friends have actually married their girlfriends, so it's not like it never happens."

She should not have come back because of his ungratefulness, but she had little choice since it was the custom of all the men in the land to ask prospective wives questions and grade their dances, and she was no longer young, so the men who didn't know her would not pick her in any case.

This time the man chose another young woman, and this one did not rob him, but really knew nothing about being a wife (in spite of her clever answers and seductive dance), so she asked the girlfriend what to do. The girlfriend helped her, and their children grew up as brothers and sisters and were equally successful in life, regardless of whether their mother was wife or the girlfriend. Sometimes when they were alone, the wife would even tell the girlfriend that if she ever decided to leave the man, she would tell him to marry the girlfriend.

The wife did leave him after they had been married long enough for her to get half the property in the divorce, but by then the girlfriend was dead, so her promise didn't matter.

***

This is what the hiring process is like for an adjunct. We serve an institution faithfully for years, teaching the same classes as our full time counterparts, serving on committees when we are allowed, and doing all the things faculty are supposed to do only without receiving the same rewards.

Then when it comes time to hire someone for a full time job, the hiring committee thinks they are doing us a great favor by giving us an interview and treating us exactly the same as someone they don't know. They don't often hire the person who steals their kidneys, but they will pick someone flashy and glib or bubbly because they are just out of grad school, only to then ask the part timer to tell the new full timer how to do their job--but they would NEVER lose their kidneys or hire someone who needed on the job training if they chose based on what they had seen over years instead of over a few minutes.

This is why community college districts must be required to offer full time jobs to part timers before they open it up to outside applicants.

And because hiring committees can't seem to tell the difference between a good life partner and a good lap dance.

Next CA Senate leader supports equal pay for equal work--for LEGISLATORS

As part of their deal with Arnold on the budget, California legislators may be cutting their salaries, but only of those starting a new term this year, not those in the middle of a term, so three-fourths would get the cut and one-fourth wouldn't.

Wow, an arbitrary difference in pay scales not based on qualifications or work done, but strictly as a cost saving measure--who would allow something like that?

Not the California legislature, at least not when THEIR six figure incomes are at stake.

Will legislators now finally be as outraged about part time community college faculty being paid as little as 25% as much as their full time counterparts with the same qualifications to teach the exact same classes?

Part time faculty make up three-fourths of those who teach community college, but our hours are capped in any one district so we have to patch several jobs together to make a living, and unlike state legislators, it doesn't add up to six figures or often even include health insurance.

For 40 years, the California legislature has allowed this discrimination to persist, and hasn't changed the law that allows it, but only passed toothless resolutions that changed little to nothing.

Now that California legislators have had a taste of pay discrimination, will they take more forceful action to end it against community college educators?

The legislator quoted in the piece as opposing unequal pay, Sen. Darrell Steinberg, is scheduled to be a leader in the Senate.

Write him a letter, thanking him for supporting the concept of equal pay for equal work, tell him you look forward to his quick, real action on this for part time faculty who have been discriminated against for 40 years with the legislature's approval, and not just resolutions of intentions to do nothing.

Email contact page for CA state Darrell Steinberg

Since legislators filter out emails that aren't from their constituents, you may want to snail mail, fax, or call him:

Phone: (916) 651-4006
Fax: (916) 323-2263

Capitol Office State Capitol, Room 4035 Sacramento, CA 95814

District Office 1020 N Street, #576 Sacramento, CA 95814

North Highlands District Office 5722 Watt Avenue North Highlands, CA 95660

You should also write your own state legislators and let them know you share their pain. You can find out who represents you and how to contact them HERE.

This is also worth a letter to the paper legislators read and that ran the story, the Sacramento Bee.

Sacramento Bee Letter Submissions

KEY EXCERPTS:

This story is taken from Sacbee / News / AP State News.
Most California legislators could be hit with pay cut
By STEVE LAWRENCE - Associated Press Writer
Published 12:09 pm PDT Sunday, June 8, 2008

Some California legislators might claim to be victims of pay discrimination if the commission that sets state elected officials' salaries decides this week to impose its first pay cut.

But Jim Evans, a spokesman for Sen. Darrell Steinberg, the Sacramento Democrat who is scheduled to become the Senate's top leader later this year, said a proposal to cut some legislators' salaries but not others "would seem to violate an equal-pay-for-equal-work standard and would be seen as inherently unfair."

FULL TEXT

Part Timer Load Boosted from 60% to 67% in Bill Passed in CA Assembly 60-0 , Now Goes to State Senate

It's not equal pay, but it will make life easier for some part timers in California.

The California Assembly voted 60-0 in favor of AB591, a bill raising the cap on part time faculty loads to 67%.

For the past forty years, part time faculty have been limited to working 60% of a full time load in any one district. This has made life especially difficult for those who taught five unit classes like foreign language instructors since it meant they could only teach one class per district and would need at least three different districts to put together the equivalent of a full load.

This bill would allow those instructors and others to teach ten units in any one district.

AB 591 originally included broader reforms including requiring equal pay and benefits for part timers, but those provisions were cut since budget cuts this year makes bills with new spending unlikely to pass.

The CFT’s lobbyist, Judith Michaels, convinced the group that originally pushed the bill, the California Part Time Faculty Association (CPFA), and the legislator who sponsored the bill, Assemblymember Mervyn Dymally, to amend the bill to include the 67% cap since the part time faculty committee had recently asked for legislation raising the cap and the broader community college council voted in favor of it.

The bill could make an equally speedy passage in the California Senate if the people affected by it would contact their state senators and tell them what to do.

How to Contact CA Senators about Raising Cap on Part Timer Loads to 67%

For every person who contacts an elected official, they assume there are ten more people who have the same opinion but are too lazy to make the effort to bug them. So if you call or email your legislators, it’s like you’re getting to vote ten times.

You can find out who your state senator is and their contact info by going to this link and entering your zip code:

FIND YOUR CA LEGISLATORS

When you call or write, just tell them you support (or oppose) AB 591, and that you are a faculty member yourself.

death of the trash digging professor

Sometimes I think we understate the harm done to us by the abusive and discriminatory adjunct system because we are embarrassed. Few people are comfortable telling the whole world that their checks bounced, their significant other left them because they couldn't get a "real" job, or that they still live in parents' basement at 50. If you can't bring yourself to tell your story, tell this guy's, originally told by Barbara McKenna in AFT on Campus:

Adjunct teacher Marty Slobin’s obituary in the Dec. 12, 2000 edition of the Detroit Free Press is moving for its brevity. It memorializes the lecturer who had received a distinguished teaching award from the University of Michigan-Dearborn just the year before and who also taught at Wayne State University and Henry Ford Community College.

“Words cannot describe what this man does in the classroom,” a former student says.

Outside the classroom, Slobin commuted to his teaching jobs on three campuses by bus because he could not afford to keep a car.

“Marty’s whole life was devoted to his students and his teaching,” says a fellow professor.

Suffering from heart disease, Slobin could not afford the treatment—surgery—because the income he lost during a convalescence would make it impossible for him to keep up his health insurance premium payments.

Slobin had “succeeded in making the study of political science meaningful in the lives of his students,” the paper quotes Bernard Klein, a former interim chancellor of the university.

At one point, the university asked Slobin to stop going through the trash in search of the pop cans he returned to collect their deposit refunds.

“I attended his class on congressional elections earlier this fall,” says the university chancellor, Daniel Little, “and was able to see firsthand the respect and affection his students felt for him.”

Slobin, 55, died on Dec. 6 in his office after a heart attack. He was so poor, says Bonnie Halloran, president of the Lecturers Employee Organization (LEO)/AFT at the University of Michigan, that faculty at Dearborn and the neighboring community college took up a collection to pay for his funeral.

FULL TEXT

If your story isn't as extreme as his, it's probably because you have a job in another industry, a spouse, or some other relative who takes up the slack. Without one of those safety nets, most of us could be this guy.

Get candidates (even presidential ones) on record about FACE during primary season

Most of the time when you talk to politicians about correcting a basic injustice they will complain about how much money it costs, how the opposition party or other interests will resist it, or how it will never be signed by your governor.

There is one time when politicians, particularly Democrats, are EAGER, to promise action to educators: when they are running against an opponent in the primaries. They can't afford to have a key constituency like us apathetic and despondent on election day.

In California's last governor's race, I got the democratic candidates for governor on the record supporting equal pay and ending discrimination against part time faculty

(unfortunately, the winner was running against Arnold Schwarzenegger, and unlike Arnold, he hadn't made dozens of action movies that could be played on continuous loop on cable before the election).

All it took to get that promise was showing up at a candidates forum on a Saturday afternoon, and writing a question on a little card. I wrote a follow up letter to the winner to get him to confirm his promise in writing, which he did.

If your state has a governor's race or a contested primary for your state legislator, go ask them. If the seat isn't contested or the likely winner isn't likely to support equal rights for part time faculty, ask them anyway. You can use it to remind other faculty members why they SHOULDN'T vote for that person.

Since this is a presidential election year, you have an opportunity to take this a level higher.

When you find out a presidential primary candidate will be in your area glad-handing, show up and ask them if they would sign a bill ending discrimination in pay and benefits against part time and contingent faculty.

The Democratic candidates are desperate to get labor support and will be unlikely to say no. John Edwards in particular has made being labor-friendly a centerpiece of his campaign.

If you can get it on tape or video, even with your phone camera, so you can post it online, even better.

Does this mean the candidate will push legislation or even sign a bill if elected president?

Who knows.

But if you get them on the record saying they will, you can use that to draw attention to the abuse of adjunct faculty and to show state legislators that they are behind the curve and better act fast if they don't want to end up looking like the Orville Faubus of the 21st Century.

Cross-posted at FACE Talk




democratic primary presidential candidate john edwards orville faubus campaign promise part time faculty adjunct faculty equal pay for equal work pro rata pay california community college auditor labor union aft american federation of teachers

BARBARA EHRENREICH on Part Time Faculty in "CEOs vs. Slaves"

We are mentioned in paragraph seven:

But a parallel kind of splitting is going in many of the professions. Top-ranked college professors, for example, enjoy salaries of several hundred thousand a year, often augmented by consulting fees and earnings from their patents or biotech companies. At the other end of the professoriate, you have adjunct teachers toiling away for about $5000 a semester or less, with no benefits or chance of tenure. There was a story a few years ago about an adjunct who commuted to his classes from a homeless shelter in Manhattan, and adjuncts who moonlight as waitresses or cleaning ladies are legion.

FULL TEXT

The next paragraph talks about people who should be our natural allies, lawyers and other advanced degree "perma-temps," who mistakenly thought that if they got a masters or higher, they would at least have secured a place in the middle class.

This is why attacking the definition of temporary may be an issue that resonates with people outside academia.

The temping industry and model of employment has grown far beyond fluctuations in companies' demand for labor as might happen with tax accountants for example. Instead, like our situation, many businesses have a constant rotating cadre of temps to avoid benefits or employees who accumulate seniority or much scrutiny about why someone is let go.

Since a lot of people will be reading this story, you might want to post a testimonial comment about how you have been screwed as an adjunct in the comment section at the end, to raise public awareness.

POST COMMENTS AT BOTTOM

And contact Ehrenreich with your stories and what we are trying to change, so she might revisit this issue in another column in the future.

EHRENREICH CONTACT PAGE

She also has a blog & organization for screwed professionals.

This is the first I've seen of her blog, but it's worth a look.

Barbara Ehrenreich temporary part time faculty adjunct faculty equal pay for equal work pro rata pay california health insurance retirement benefits AFT FACE Faculty and College Excellence community college nickled and dimed bait and switch middle class labor union discrimination legislation

class action lawsuit got health insurance for PTers in WA state--did it help equal pay bill?

The judge in the health insurance case slammed the legal fiction that we are "temporary" employees even after working in a district for decades:

law firm of Bendich, Stobaugh and Strong, P.C.

The settlement ends a five-year class action lawsuit filed by Eva Mader of Bellevue and Teresa Knudsen of Spokane. They worked more than half-time for 21 and 10 years, respectively. In June 2003, the Washington Supreme Court ruled in favor of the instructors and reversed decisions by the Health Care Authority, the Superior Court, and the Court of Appeals that denied the part-time instructors health care benefits in the summer, even though full-time instructors, who also do not work in the summer, have benefits all year.

The Health Care Authority had said that Mader, who worked for 21 years, was not eligible because she was a “temporary” quarter-to-quarter employee. The Supreme Court ruled that the Authority “must examine the actual work circumstances of a state employee, rather than the contracts or titles under which he or she is employed, to determine whether an employee is eligible for state-paid health benefits.” The Court said, “Twenty-one years is not a temporary position.”

http://www.bs-s.com/ptfhc.htm

This is the kind of thing that should put the fear of God in legislators. They need to know that if they don't end this separate and unequal system, we will seek other remedies. Frankly, I don't see much downside to this, in light of the victories WA got on retirement benefits too, and it probably gives their legislature an incentive to treat the pending equal pay bill seriously since they know a judge may correct their morally and constitutionally defective work if they don't.

Retirement lawsuit in WA state:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/coll04.shtml

Campus Equity Week update from WA state:
http://www.campusequityweek.org/CampusEquityWeek/articles/update-wa.htm

Politicians seem to respond to only one of three things:

1. donations


2. a large number of angry people


3. court orders

The first two have gotten mixed results at best here in California. Maybe the relevant committees in the legislature need to know we are considering this, so they could pre-empt it with legislation, and look like the good guys.





campus equity week class action lawsuit health insurance retirement benefits washington part time faculty adjunct faculty equal pay for equal work pro rata pay california community college seattle post intelligencer labor union Bendich Stobaugh and Strong

Board votes against even PRINCIPLE of equal pay for part timers

The mechanism for achieving parity set up in AB 420 seems to assume that trustees and administrators have the welfare of the faculty at heart, and merely differ with us about how to look after it.

They do not.

Those of us who have worked for districts where they don't even make the pretense of providing part timers with health care know this. They literally do not care if we drop dead.

And now, the board of trustees of one district has voted against even the PRINCIPLE of equal pay for part timers.

This evidence should be presented to legislators to show that if equal pay is not REQUIRED BY LAW, districts will drag their feet, and even when it is achieved in some places, try to roll it back when they get in a budget jam or just want to pad their reserves even further.

A law like this already exists for K-12, and has been proposed in Washington state. We need an equal pay law here too.

These guys don't seem to have a webpage yet, so I'm passing it along for them.

The gist is in the first paragraph.

From Adjunct Faculty United of North Orange:

(DRAFT) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On Tuesday, May 9, the North Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees voted “no” on the principle of parity for part-time faculty. Adjunct Faculty United, the union that represents all part-time faculty in the district, had asked the board to take a public stand in favor of the principle of “equal pay for equal work” for all faculty.

In the North Orange County Community College District, comprised of Fullerton College, Cypress College, and the School of Continuing Education, part-time faculty (who make up two-thirds of all faculty), get about 50% of what full-time faculty make when they teach the same classes. This is different from what part-time teachers make in the K-12 system, where a teacher with the same credentials and same experience is paid at the same rate as an equally qualified full-time teacher.

Four trustees, Leonard Lahtinen, Michael Matsuda, and the two student trustees (whose votes are only advisory), voted Tuesday in favor of pay parity. Five trustees, Donna Miller, Jeff Brown, Molly McClanahan, Manny Ontiveros, and Barbara Dunsheath, voted against the resolution. Four of the five trustees who opposed the equal pay principle are up for re-election later this year.

NOCCCD Chancellor Jerry Hunter encouraged the trustees to vote “no”, saying that a positive vote would set a bad precedent, that the board should put this issue into the hands of the district negotiating team.

Denny Konshak, chief negotiator for the part-time faculty, objects, saying that it is both proper and right for the trustees to take a public stand in favor of the principle of pay parity, and then leave the details to be worked out at the negotiating table. President of Adjunct Faculty United, Sam Russo, agrees: “In the five years we’ve had our union, the district’s negotiators have staunchly refused to subscribe to any reasonable definition of pay parity for its part-time instructors. It’s time these trustees, who are publicly elected and accountable, take a firm stand on this basic principle in the American workplace and send a real message to their employees and their negotiating team.”

Several trustees stated that they were concerned that their “no” vote might send the wrong message to their part-time faculty, but still opposed the motion that would have made equal pay a goal in NOCCCD. At least one trustee seemed surprised that his district paid $30 an hour less than a neighboring community college district. Reasons for opposing the goal of pay parity with full-timers included: we don’t know what “equal” means, and the college district might be sued some time in the future if they don’t live up to this principle.

Founding president of Adjunct Faculty United, Linda Cushing, also spoke at the board meeting in favor of the principle of “equal pay for equal work” She addresses the trustees’ fear that they will be sued if they do not reach that goal. Cushing said, “At the beginning of the board meeting, everybody, including the trustees, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, saying they subscribed to the principle of ‘liberty and justice for all’. Tell me the board is equally worried about a mythical lawsuit by someone charging them with violating liberty and justice.”

A number of other community college districts, such as San Francisco City College, Cabrillo College, and San Jose-Evergreen CCD, have put themselves on record supporting the principle of equal pay for part-time faculty when the funds become available.

_________________________

For more information, contact:

Sam Russo
Office: 714-526-5759
Home: 714 –961-8058
Cell: 714-290-1685
Srusso@elcamino.cc.ca

Denny Konshak
Home: 714-962-4766

My addition:

To share your thoughts with the NOCCCD trustees:

http://nocccd.cc.ca.us/Trustees/TrusteeBios.htm



North Orange County Community College District NOCCCD Adjunct Faculty United Donna Miller Jeff Brown Molly McClanahan Manny Ontiveros Barbara Dunsheath Chancellor Jerry Hunter
part time faculty adjunct faculty equal pay for equal work pro rata pay california community college auditor labor union aft american federation of teachers