Two powerful labor unions — the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of Teachers — are battling to represent the adjunct professors at New York University, a corps of nearly 3,000 part-time teachers at the low end of the academic totem pole.þþThe contest over a group of instructors who have largely been ignored at N.Y.U., and elsewhere, reflects both the increased role adjuncts are playing in universities and the growing efforts to unionize higher education.þþIf the organizing drive is successful — ballots were mailed to N.Y.U.'s adjuncts in mid-May — other prestigious universities are likely to face similar organizing drives, labor experts said, and their labor costs are likely to climb.þþÿIf N.Y.U. goes this route, Columbia and other universities won't be far behind,ÿ said Jack H. Schuster, a professor of education and public policy at Claremont Graduate University in California and co-author of a book on American faculties due out next year. ÿWhile there are other places where this may be be occurring, they will not send the same signal that a place with a reputation like N.Y.U. will.ÿþþN.Y.U. has not tried to block the unionization election, as it did when its graduate student assistants unionized. But its new president, John Sexton, asked the adjuncts to vote no on unionization.þþÿIt is my belief that the adversarial nature of collective bargaining likely will diminish the quality of the dialogue that I believe must characterize the coming years,ÿ he wrote to the adjuncts, ÿand will limit our capacity to work together.ÿþþIn recent decades, many universities have tried to hold costs down by hiring adjuncts rather than full-time professors. In the early 1970's, adjunct faculty members were about 22 percent of all faculty members nationwide. By 1998, they were 43 percent. With 2,700 adjuncts and 3,100 full-time faculty members, N.Y.U.'s part-time faculty is nearly as big as its full-time faculty.þþFor universities, the advantage of hiring adjuncts is clear: they are paid relatively little and can be hired or dismissed at will. Full-time professors often start at salaries of about $40,000 a year, and they may be eligible for tenure.þþAdjuncts are temporary workers who may be paid as little as $1,000 or $2,000 a course and they typically receive no health coverage, no pension benefits and no job guarantee. But they also do not face the same demands to publish, to advise students or to serve on committees.þþSome, like Joyce I. Brandon, a chemist who works as a consultant and teaches mathematics in N.Y.U.'s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, are professionals who hold full-time jobs in their fields and teach one or two courses a year. Others, like Chris Packard, who teaches literature and cultural studies at N.Y.U. and has also taught at New School University and the City University of New York, are Ph.D.'s who would like to teach full time but have not found permanent positions. þþÿWe're really fighting for the soul of higher education,ÿ said Gerald Pallor, a 54-year-old N.Y.U. adjunct who taught digital video techniques at N.Y.U.'s Tisch School of the Arts for 10 years until last summer, when, just weeks before the fall semester began, he learned that he was no longer needed at Tisch.þþMr. Pallor, who still teaches a similar video-technology course in N.Y.U.'s School of Continuing and Professional Studies and who made a video for the A.F.T., said he would be happier if the teachers' union won. ÿBut as long as a union is voted in,ÿ he said, ÿwe win something.ÿþþSome labor experts say that while it is too early to say what N.Y.U.'s adjuncts might win if they organize, they are likely to win something. þþÿI think the window has opened for increased benefits for adjuncts around the nation,ÿ said Frederick S. Lane, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College, ÿfor increased salary, pay for office hours, office space, access to technology, and some health care benefits.þþAt N.Y.U., as at many universities, the biggest concentration of adjuncts is in the continuing-education program, which employs nearly 1,000. But N.Y.U. also employs 648 in its education school and more than 360 each in the Tisch School of the Arts and the School of Arts and Science, and lesser numbers in its other schools.þþAdjuncts were deemed eligible to vote if they taught for at least 40 hours during the fall and spring semesters. The schools of law, medicine and dentistry were excluded.þþN.Y.U. officials estimate that about a fifth of the adjuncts make their living primarily as adjuncts, piecing together jobs at N.Y.U. and other universities.þþÿThat 20 percent reflects the hard reality in the educational world that there are more people aspiring to tenure-track positions than there are tenure-track positions,ÿ said John Beckman, an N.Y.U. spokesman. ÿAnd no adjunct contract is going to change that.ÿþþBut even adjuncts with other jobs say they feel exploited, and would like to see their status, working conditions and compensation improved.þþÿMost of the people I teach with have full-time jobs in other places, but many of us feel a lack of security and a sense of being marginalized,ÿ said Ms. Brandon, the math adjunct who is working with the U.A.W.þþMark Read, an adjunct who works for ÿDemocracy Now,ÿ a nationally-syndicated radio and television program, and teaches video activism at N.Y.U.'s Gallatin School, said he, too, felt underpaid and underused. þþMr. Read said he believed a union would raise the pay and benefits and give adjuncts more of a voice in the university. þþAlthough some adjuncts' unions exist, adjuncts are generally regarded as a difficult group to organize because they spend so few hours at a university, typically have no offices, and move in and out of the university. þþÿBut there is a lot of energy and pro-union sentiment on campuses,ÿ said Joshua B. Freeman, a history professor and labor expert at Queens College. ÿThis is part of a much broader wave of organizing everyone from dorm counselors to graduate students.ÿþþThe current campaign at N.Y.U. took root as the U.A.W. was conducting its successful campaign to organize the graduate assistants there. Julie Kushner, the U.A.W.'s subregional director in the New York metropolitan region, who is overseeing the union's adjunct campaign, said some adjuncts approached her about helping them, too. She noted that the union had been organizing at universities for more than two decades and represents workers at the University of Massachusetts, Columbia University and N.Y.U. þþThe A.F.T. has also expressed a strong interest in representing the N.Y.U. adjuncts, arguing that it already represents N.Y.U.'s clerical workers, as well as about 50,000 other adjuncts nationally.þþÿThese are educational workers, and this is our area of professional expertise,ÿ said Sandra Feldman, the A.F.T.'s president.þþBoth unions have poured money into the campaign, showering the adjuncts with fliers, videos, e-mail messages and personal visits from union organizers. The teachers have until early June to vote for either the U.A.W., the A.F.T. or for no union. If no choice receives a majority of the votes cast, there will be a runoff.þþ þþþþ þ þ þ þ þ þ þ þ þ þ þ þþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþ þ
Source: NY Times
