A group based in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs hosted a session on Wednesday in preparation for National Adjunct Walkout Day next Wednesday.

The Maxwell School’s Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration’s Labor Studies Working Group hosted a session on Wednesday titled “Mobilizing the Academic Precariat: The Contingent Faculty Labor Movement at SU and Beyond.”

The Labor Studies Working Group is an interdisciplinary group of graduate students and faculty members that work toward advancing labor studies and labor related issues on campus. The presentation focused on adjunct professors, specifically on their wages, working conditions and roles within universities both at SU and nationwide.

Recently, the issues that adjunct professors, or part-time, non-tenure track university employees, face have been a part of the national discussion because next Wednesday, adjuncts around the U.S. will protest on National Adjunct Walkout Day.

The first speaker, Gretchen Purser, a professor of sociology and a member of the Labor Studies Working Group, put the plight of adjuncts within a larger, national context.

“Though the situation for adjuncts vary considerably by campus and within each campus, virtually all adjunct faculty face a certain set of common conditions,” Purser said. “The first is egregiously low pay, the second is a lack of benefits and the third is a lack in job security.”

She noted that nationally, adjuncts only make around $2,700 per class taught.

The root of the problem, she said, is that adjuncts only get paid for the time they are actually teaching in the classroom, not for the many additional hours, like office hours, that they spend working.

Matt Huber, a geography professor and member of the Labor Studies Working Group, spoke at the meeting about the conditions and specificities that adjunct professors encounter at SU.

At SU, 32 percent of instructors are part-time, non-tenure track employees. In the College of Arts and Sciences, which employs more adjuncts than any other school on campus, adjuncts make around $3,621 per class taught, which is higher than the national average but still extremely low, said Huber.

Laurel Morton, the president of Adjuncts United, a union representing adjuncts on campus, spoke third. She expounded on the role and importance of having an organized union on campus that represents a collective voice to negotiate with the administration.

“Because there is a union on this campus, we have an avenue to voice our concerns and to make a statement,” Morton said. “Union activity on this campus has made a huge difference for part-time faculty here.”

Heather Clemens, a labor relations specialist that works with Adjuncts United, a group that represents SU’s part-time teachers, spoke about the legal specifics that preclude adjuncts from receiving a minimum wage and other benefits like medical leave and health insurance.

“Adjuncts are exempted from a federal law called the Fair Labor Standards Act,” Clemens said. “They don’t have to be paid minimum wage.”

During the meeting, Eileen Schell, an associate professor of writing and rhetoric and a member of the Labor Studies Working Group, added another dimension to the conversation: gender.

She said that most adjuncts are women, and in order to improve the conditions that adjuncts work in, the structural impediments that women in academia face also need to be addressed.

Published on February 19, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Rachel: rsandler@syr.edu