This moderated blog is for AFA members to share their ideas and opinions on issues relevant to the adjunct experience, teaching in a community college, the Oakton experience , or the IEA/NEA experience. The ideas and opinions expressed on this blog are those of our individual members and may not represent the positions of the AFA.
Post By Chet Kulis, February 24, 2013 Should 3 hour People Be in the Bargaining Unit?
A couple of young adjuncts at OCC approached me at the OCC board meeting on Obamacare and adjuncts. They want to become union activists but there is a glitch.
Oakton’s Adjunct Faculty Association was the first community college union in Illinois, before adjuncts had state-wide bargaining rights. AFA and OCC on their own agreed that eligible adjuncts for the BU were those who taught two courses in a semester. That is still the requirement, although other adjunct unions like Chicago City Colleges have eligibility for adjuncts who have taught one course two semesters in a row.
For various reasons the AFA board has resisted trying to expand our BU to adjuncts teaching just one course. Barb Dayton has been our only president since the AFA was founded in the the 1980s. Our AFA membership meeting (including me) looks like a retirement center social event. Philosophically AFA is committed to senior adjuncts in negotiating issues so we have never addressed healthcare as an issue, since lack of coverage affects relatively few senior adjuncts in AFA’s view. The AFA board also feels that it would be very difficult to recruit one-course adjuncts who have a minimum commitment to Oakton and likely would be reluctant to pay the AFA/IEA dues out of their meager stipend for teaching just once course.
Assuming that AFA’s board does not change its position, can the one-course adjuncts on their own under state law or IEA oversight force the issue to become part of AFA through a recognition drive?
Ultimately the AFA board and its base of senior adjuncts will retire or be retired by the Grim Reaper. Then the new one-course adjuncts will come into the AFA as their replacements. But we will have lost a tremendous amount of time and opportunity to expand our AFA membership base. Right now we have three faculty groups: the FT union, the adjunct union, and hundreds of adjuncts who might teach one course a semester for years but never be in our union. Not good.
Your thoughts???
Comment by Barry Dayton
We are posting your email to the board on the blog as per your request as you raise an important point, one that we are often asked. It is covered in our FAQ but it is worth repeating.
The AFA welcomes 3 hour faculty if they are willing to pay the $200 per year dues. Just contact Cheryl Brown our membership chair and sign the IEA and payroll deduction forms. They can get IEA-NEA benifits, including liability insurance and access to an Attorney, come to our membership meetings, vote on our contract and be on our board. But they might not be in our bargaining unit, that is they might not be covered by the contract. Some 3 hour faculty are in the bargaining unit if they taught 6 or more hours either of the two previous semseters, and they must pay the dues. In fact, the adjuncts you saw at our "Obama Care" rally most likely were in the bargaining unit and already are union members.
Some of your assertions are not factual. You should get and read a copy of our AFA History, our office manager will be happy to sell you a copy for $5.00. Barbara Dayton was not our first AFA president. You will find that the AFA was formed in 1984 and Barbara Dayton did not become President until 1997.
At the time AFA was certified the IELRA, the State Law governing educational labor relations, required that only 6 hour faculty could be in the bargaining unit. It was not an arbitrary decision by the AFA or College. In 2003 the 6 hour requirement was changed to include 3 hour people who had taught 6 hours recently to give us more continuity. It should be noted that AFA played the leading role in changing the law to allow us and other community colleges to have 3 hour people in the bargaining unit.
While we all agree that the AFA needs a new generation to lead, there is no evidence that, on the whole, 3 hour non-members are younger than those who are presently members. Many 3 hour faculty voluntarily teach 3 hours so they can spend most of their time caring for their grandchildren. Others have full time jobs and tend to be anti-union. If I am wrong then you are correct in that one course adjuncts can collect cards and ask for a certifying election to become part of our bargaining unit. They must get a majority of those eligble to join the unit to sign cards and then an election will be held in which there must again be a majority voting yes. Any volunteers to do this organizing?
Even though one course faculty are not in the bargaining unit, Oakton has extended many of the provisions of the contract, such as our pay scale, to them. So it is to everyone's advantage if even if some faculty don't pay dues that we all work together for a better contract this Summer.
Post By Stacy Bautista, February 22, 2013 2/19/2013 Meeting of the Board of Trustees
Estimated count of people in attendance: 78 (filled the room, all the seating space, some people standing in the doorway) [AFA estimate: 80-100 adjuncts]
Board members present: Jody Wadhwa, Ann Tennes, Patricia Harada, William Stafford, George Alexopoulos, Margaret "Peg" Lee [President], Theresa Bashir-Remetio (student representative). [Board members Joan DiLeonardi and Eric Staley were absent], Vice Presidents Bonnie Lucas, Joianne Smith, Robert Nowak, Thomas Hamel and Union Presidents Barbara Dayton, Kathleen Carot, Kathleen DeCourcey.
Meeting opened with the observation from the College President Peg Lee that many were here to address the recent issue of adjuncts and ACA. She wanted to address that quickly:
Peg Lee : two principles Oakton is committed to when considering this matter:
We won't apply one standard across the board to this problem. There will be multiple approaches to it, including:
(Long list of announcements re: Oakton Events and recent bereavements then noted)
Chairman Wadhwa:
Remarked that there had been an "unusual request for public participation" and moved to hold the comments session first so that those who were only there for that portion of the meeting need not stay.
Motion carried.
FORMAT: 3 minutes per speaker
1) Barbara Dayton -- AFA president: noted that Oakton is heavily dependent upon adjuncts. 65% of all courses taught by adjuncts; 71% in the natural sciences, 79% in the biological sciences. Argued that limiting LHEs would prevent some adjuncts from having access to health care and lower the amount of money that adjuncts take home. Argued that 12 LHEs and benefits would benefit both adjuncts and the institution, and that few would qualify for the benefits anyway. She argued that "we should work together to find common ground."
2) Linda Berendsen -- 12 year-adjunct at OCC: 12 years of experience elsewhere at Roosevelt teaching immigrants. She emphasized her strong teaching ability and that teaching is a passion for her. She explained that she had ?cobbled together? a living teaching and tutoring, and brought home a significant portion of the family?s income. She has two special needs teenagers, and her husband lost his job in September. With tutoring also under assault at OCC, their home would be at risk. She drew attention to the "abysmal" morale among adjuncts that the measure has generated.
3) Vincent Samar -- adjunct at OCC since 2010: 3 courses/semester, 2/ summer, numerous publications, including books. Vincent explained that he had tested HIV positive in 1984, and had participated in the NIH study that pioneered the study of the disease, tracking volunteers with histories in multiple cities. From this study, the drugs required to manage the disease were developed. Vincent told the Board and all assembled he had no health care. The drugs that sustain his life are $1300/mo. His low-income status meant he could obtain them for free so long as he received the mandatory twice a year doctor?s examination. But since he has no health care, he must pay for those examinations out of his own pocket in order to maintain free access to life-saving drugs. He expressed his dismay that a liberal institution, in the state from which Pres. Obama, with whom the ACA is strongly associated and who had mandated the bill, would attempt to deny those who need access to health care by resorting to such tactics.
4) Keith Johnson -- adjunct in sociology: Used an article he had recently written for a forthcoming edition of the Encyclopedia of Work to review the concept of marginal jobs, and the dual labor market that resorts in a two-tier work place in which full-timers are first-class citizens and adjuncts are second class-citizens. Quoted from the community Colleges of Illinois: in 2010, the average f/t salary @ Oakton was $80K, with added income of $20K, and roughly $12.5 K in benefits. P/t workers on average in 2010 received $833/credit hour to teach f/t loads, earning $25K/year. Economic consequences are obvious, social consequences -- adjuncts cause embarrassment as an elephant in the room (I took to be the point, which was rushed as he had reached the 3 minute mark).
5) Donna Ryan -- 25+ years as an adjunct: Strong moral outrage: "Ludicrous and wrong!" She argued that to cut LHEs for adjuncts was "bad business" if the goal was to educate students. Faculty need training and need morale. They need money. Adjuncts need 5 courses to survive, and would have to work on 3 campuses to get those courses if this decision went through. This would cause adjuncts to deprioritize Oakton, because the "message is : we're not worth anything."
6) Steven Brody -- [AFA Bargaining Team and Soccer Coach]. Steven opened by saying he had spent 8 years as an elected city councilman, and so could "understand the board's position"; cuts in hours result in real effects on real families. This came home to him when he was sitting up with a sick child, considering what it would be like not to have access to health care for a loved one. His argument seemed to be that adjuncts and faculty should work with the board, and come to a mutual agreement on what was necessary fiscally: ?unilateral acts are premature. He argued that Oakton could take the "easy road" and join other major corporate employers like Applebee's and take the loophole offered to cut adjunct hours, or they could take the hard road and "actually work with faculty to make this work and get everyone health care."
7) Ariel Volpert -- adjunct and former Oakton student: Ariel's comment pointed fingers at government and financiers as responsible for creating a situation that disrespects the notion that providing a good job, work and wages is an end in itself. She contrasted Oakton?s present position and academia?s with the position of small business owners, whose ethos is that to provide jobs and a useful service is an end in itself. Maximizing profit as an end creates the problematic ethos of America, and she asks that Oakton move against this ethos imposed by the structure of a society dedicated to profit maximization.
8) Thomas Young -- rep. for Honor Student Organization and Students for Social Justice: Argued against adjunct faculty cuts. He explained that the members of these student associations found the present policy of cutting adjunct LHEs to be detrimental to workers? rights, education, and student organizations, the latter because it goes against the values of their organization and of individual students. He argued that this policy was against the interests of the community residents as well.
9) Holly Graff -- Member of the full-time Faculty Senate and Chair of the Department of Humanities and Philosophy: Reported that senate members were unanimously in support of adjuncts. No reduction in loads for adjuncts would be acceptable, and Oakton should offer health care to adjuncts. As chair of the 4th largest department in OCC, she explained that already 78% of students in that department were taught by adjuncts. Most adjuncts needed and wanted 3-4 classes, and that there were not enough adjuncts to comply with the policy. Adjuncts teaching at OCC f/t were more likely to be available to students here and to understand Oakton. Most of the best adjuncts couldn?t participate in helping to run the department if they suffered an LHE cut.
10) Gary Mines -- Chemistry coordinator at Oakton: Explained the effects of the LHE cut on his department. Lab classes in chem. Are 6 LHEs; this would mean most adjuncts could only teach 1 course. 21 adjuncts in the category of lab teacher, 11 taught 23+ LHEs, 7 taught 30+ LHEs, 5 taught 35+ LHEs. The policy would wipe out 50% of chemistry summer courses if adjunct course loads were reduced.
11) Lindsey Hewitt-- adjunct, teaching 4 classes in social sciences and WGS: Stressed her commitment to Oakon, her membership of WGS steering committee, involvement in planning shows, lecture series, etc., the significant amount of time she spent outside of class mentoring students with whom she now enjoys permanent ties; she was part of the search committee for a recent vice presidential hire. If the cuts are put in place, they will cut her income in half and she would have to stretch herself thin across multiple institutions, sacrificing the relationships that make teaching rewarding.
12) David Geller -- chair of manufacturing technology: In 1978 he was an adjunct and has been at OCC 20+ years as one, but he also had a f/t engineering job. His department would suffer similarly to the chemistry department and would need twice as many adjuncts as are currently employed. Given the safety hazards inherent in his field, it is impossible to simply hire on the fly and put someone without proper experience and training in a classroom with inexperienced undergraduates. Reliable, experienced adjuncts are needed.
13) Kathleen Carot -- f/t faculty member and president of OFA (f/t faculty association): She argued that the present situation created challenges for chairs, for students dealing with hastily hired and untrained adjuncts, and that OCC had an opportunity to provide leadership in higher education to do the right thing. OCC could "correct in part injustice of higher education, exploitation of adjunct labor."She offered OFA's support if the Board and administration would undertake the challenge.
Peg Lee closed out the comments session with the following: she said she had spoken with Sen. Durbin about this matter and also with David Vain, who is in charge of writing legislation about the ACA. She pledged to "work with all of you", stressed that "there is no policy yet" and that despite "venomous e-mails" she had received, she insisted that "we" (Board, administration) do value employees. She said "I don't know how the outcome will be; there will be multiple solutions. I have heard from students hysterical about the LHE idea.
The comment session then closed, the room largely vacated, and the board watched a video about the progress on the construction of the Science and Health building, which explained the swift construction of a necessary piping system in 3 weeks, so that students and offices were not disturbed during class sessions.
At this point, I left the room and was not able to return until the session had closed completely as I had wanted to speak to others briefly about the session.
Post By Barry Dayton, September 11, 2012 Why the CPS Strike Matters
There are many reasons students do poorly in Chicago Public Schools
Oakton does not have these problems so why should this affect us? Because if CPS is successful this could become a fad. Even if a school does not have performance problems the administration may want to show their school has "quality teachers" by regularly firing bunches of teachers whether they deserve it or not. A case in point is the infamous GE "forced ranking" evaluations of employees. Each year 10% of employees had to be fired from each department. This did eventually turn out to be a disaster for the company by turning employees against each other, rather than working to further the company they were spending all their time trying to sabotage fellow workers. Recently GE has dropped this personnel process but not until many other companies tried to copy it.
I personally go back to the early days of higher education unionization. I was an original member of UPI4100, the union that represents the faculty of Northeastern Illinois University as well as employee groups in a number of other state Universities. The original issues were non monitary, for example we also had a forced ranking system although the bottom 10% was not fired, just not given raises. In our first two contracts the union was so focused on language that they left money on the table -- the Universities had budgeted more money for raises prior to negotiation than the eventual contract called for. There is nothing like arbitrary and capricious evaluation, such as has been proposed for CPS, to poison the teaching atmosphere.
As recorded in our recently published "History", money was an important issue in motivating the Adjuncts at Oakton in unionizing since there had not been a salary increase in years. But assignment of classes was also a big issue. With a new evaluation being proposed by Oakton this will be a major issue for our upcoming bargaining. The Chicago City colleges have just given their faculty a horrendous contract. If the CPS teachers cave in the Oakton administration will be out to show how they too can be tough on teachers. Colleagues, the stakes are high and we need an example of a union that will stand up to their administration on evaluation issues.
Support the Chicago Teachers!
POST By Chet Kulis, September 3, 2012
This Fall semester sociologists are dealing with two significant technological changes.
First, Pearson Publishing has introduced MySocLab to provide digital support to its Introductory Sociology textbook. Faculty can provide pre-tests, schedule assignments, bring up additional material, record grades automatically, and use all sorts of other bells and whistles in this new format.
The second is that sociology courses are now being offered in Smart Classrooms which again have features only dreamed of until recently: computerized images, on-line features, projection of documents through the overhead projector, etc.
There is only one problem to this Brave New Technological World. Adjuncts have not been given sufficient, paid training to become familiar with these new technologies. Last semester adjunct sociologists first became aware of the new MySocLab when a Pearson rep showed up at our department meeting without any announcement ahead of time by our chair. We got 1 1/2 hours of training that night – if you can call learning how to log in and getting our course code “training.” This semester we received another 1 1/2 hours of training in which we discussed some of the problems associated with the MySocLab.
Adjuncts have not received any training on the Smart Room technology either. We were told that we could visit one of the rooms during faculty orientation, but that is simply not training. In my first class I have no clue how to use this equipment. I was also dismayed to see that the VHS recorders had been removed. No one told us about this decision. I have rotated a core number of 15 high-quality PBS film documentaries in my courses. Now I realize that the technology has been revamped and I must scurry to come up with new films in another format to show this semester.
The bottom line is that adjuncts deserve to get adequate and paid training on both of these new technologies. I would assume that full-time faculty either got trained or at least could use some of their on-campus hours to train themselves if need be. It may well take an adjunct 20 hours or more to incorporate these technologies into their course work. We are already unpaid as adjuncts. We should not be expected to learn this technology on our own and without being compensated.
POST By Barry Dayton, April 14, 2012
The April 16,2012 Barron's has a suprisingly nuanced story on Student Loan Debt given they are the magizine of Dow Jones which itself is a subsidiary of Fox News. They say
The cause of the binge is the unfortunate concatenation of steeply rising tuitions in the face of stagnating family incomes, a precipitious decline in states' funding of public universities and two year colleges, [emphasis added] and the burgeoning of avaricious for profit colleges and universities-- which reley on federally guaranteed student loans for practically all of their revenue in exchange for dubious course offerings.
Barron's, finally waking up to what our friends at Occupy have been saying goes on
The student-debt crisis is emblematic of issues bedeviling the the U.S. as a whole, such as income inequality and declining social mobility. For as scholarship money is increasingly diverted from the needy ... the less priviledged applicant is thrust into the position of having to take on gobs of debt, indirectly subsidizing the education of more affluent classmates.
So things are so bad that even our capitalists are getting worried about the rampant greed that causes schools to milk every dollar our students can get in loans. An analyst at Moody's is quoted "We should worry more about more subtle things like how indebtedness is causing the U.S. to fall behind some ... emerging nations in the proportion of our population with college degrees than about any direct financial system fallout"
In a separate related article Barron's singles out ITT Educational Services for their high tuition and high rate of loans and default, noting that "[ITT] enjoyed a sales boom under the indulgent tutelage of the last Bush administration" but adding that the largest shareholder of the company is Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein's husband.
When Fox News and I agree on something, thats scary.
POST By Chet Kulis, April 3, 2012
With all the speculation about who won the Mega Ball Lottery last week and what they would do with half a billion dollars, I dreamed about what an adjunct might do with that prize.
For starters, I bought Oakton Community College where I teach and renamed it Kulis Community College.
A lot of good, unexpected things followed from that.
For once, as an adjunct I suddenly had decent pay, job security, and health insurance. I even had a pension but didn’t need that perk after waiting for it so long.
I got the most convenient time slots to teach. Out of a sense of obligation, I still taught a few of the really packed intro courses, but I also was able to pick electives which excited me but had usually gone to FT faculty. I also had R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Everyone on campus from the President on down knew my name and called me “Mr.” My dean and my chair really paid attention to my suggestions.
I thought the college would do just fine with adjunct administrators. So I made the President on down contingent employees and slashed their pay by half. What goes around comes around. And surprisingly - given the economy – not one of them quit, although they all grumbled and some talked about forming a union.
I promoted every adjunct who got great evaluations and wanted to teach full-time to a FT position as quickly as possible. If they were good enough to teach as an Oakton adjunct, they were good enough to get hired FT – and loyalty should be shown to present adjunct faculty. I also mandated that full-time faculty should take an adjunct to lunch at least once a month – Dutch treat - to open channels of communication.
And then I awoke to reality and went to teach my eager class of students, still asking myself the perennial question: “WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR KID TO BE AN ADJUNCT.”
Not if I won the lottery...
POST By Chet Kulis, republished from AFA NEWS March 25, 2012
Oakton is circulating a survey on Student Engagement which must be completed on line by April 30th. The survey does not specifically address how adjuncts interaction with students might differ from full-time faculty.
Adjuncts could reflect on how their adjunct experience might enhance but also limit their interaction with students. Are the expectations for faculty/student engagement realistic for faculty, especially adjuncts? Adjuncts have little job security, few course assignments, and low pay compared to full-time faculty.
The number of full-time faculty at Oakton has remained constant for many years (around 150), while the number of adjuncts has doubled to around 500. This adjunct perspective is critical for Student Engagement and should have been reflected in the survey.
POST By Keith Johnson, submitted 2/19/12
[Editor's Note: Keith Johnson attended the all-division meeting, town hall meeting, and the November discussion sessions for the Oakton Strategic Plan Committee. Here is his proposal based on what he observed.]
At present approximately 50 percent of the courses taught at Oakton are provided by contingent (part-time) faculty. Without full inclusion of these members of the Oakton community, the goal of Connected Communities will not be attained. Therefore: the incorporation of adjunct faculty fully into the affairs of the college is a priority that the Strategic Plan 2013 to 2017 will set standards to achieve. Oakton will take steps to include adjunct faculty at levels approximating their contribution in teaching in all areas of the college, including:
The steps for adjunct faculty and inclusion will include: