Several hundred activists from across North America met in Quebec City from August 13-15, 2010 for the ninth Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor conference. This was a great opportunity to discuss trends in higher education (such as privatization, funding crises), particularly as they affect contingents, to ponder the issues (e.g. job security, academic freedom, collective bargaining) facing us, and to consider various strategic responses. Interesting presentations came from the AAUP (American Association of University Professors) and the New Faculty Majority, the latter of which is working on a draft "Program for Change." More information and links on these are below.
Two activists from Chicago COCAL, Joe Berry and Frank Brooks, presented at a workshop on Unemployment Benefits. We'll post some of the information from that as it becomes available.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to get the leader of the effort at East-West to the conference, but you can read his statement to the conference here.
Links for the New Faculty Majority:
Adjunct faculty have been organizing at East-West University in downtown Chicago. After filing a petition for a union representation election, ALL of the adjunct faculty received letters from the administration stating that they should no longer consider themselves to be employed. This union-busting tactic has already received national attention and was the focus of a picket on Monday morning, June 21.
The United Adjunct Faculty Association (UAFA) at East-West University (EWU) withdrew its petition to vote for a union. In a letter addressed one day before EWU administration received the National Labor Relations Board collective bargaining petition notice for adjuncts, Chancellor M. Wasiullah Khan informed all department chairs, full-time faculty, part-time faculty and staff that "no contract will be renewed this year effective the forthcoming summer session and the academic year beginning with Fall quarter 2010." The letter went on to point out that no department chair, full-time faculty, part-time faculty or staff member would be hired back "without first meeting with the Chancellor." As an adjunct at EWU, I have never ever witnessed such blatant disrespect and disregard for the many hard working people who care deeply about their job. The primary reason for the petition withdrawal is based on the administration's attorney argument that no adjunct would be an employee at East-West during the summer so the petition for collective bargaining was no valid. UAFA members are not deterred. It will regroup and re-file the petition at the start of fall 2010. For more information and words of support, please send to EWUadjuncts@gmail.com.
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There will be two unemployment filing parties this May, both scheduled for the week of May 10. Basic info is below. Follow the links to download the flyers.
"Filing parties" are springing up like tulips - one was held at the College of DuPage on May Day, another on May 10 at the CLEP offices in Chicago and another was held at SIU-Edwardsville..
The organizers are beginning to develop materials to make this run as smoothly as possible. Check out the items listed below and get ready to fight for your right to unemployment!
Earlier versions of this pamphlet have been available on the COCAL website since October 2007. Now it has been updated and published with beautiful graphics after generous financial help from the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors.
You can still download a PDF version of this revised pamphlet from this website (without the cover page) by following the "download" link below.
Ordering print copies:
If you want to order print copies (with the cover page above), follow the "order" link.
This will take you to an offsite order page where you can fill out forms to order copies at $5 plus $2 shipping each.
Chicago COCAL developed out of Campus Equity Week 2001. On November 2, 2001, the final plenary session of the Metro Chicago CEW Conference at Harold Washington College adopted a resolution to form this group, modeled on the COCAL chapter already organized in Boston. Chicago's chapter brings together adjuncts, temporary full-time instructors, graduate students, and others concerned about the working conditions of contingent academic labor in our area.
An open steering committee has met monthly since November of 2001 and has involved instructors from several Chicago colleges and universities, most of whom are involved in existing or emerging faculty unions. In addition, union organizers and officials from the Illinois Federation of Teachers, Illinois Education Association, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, other unions have attended.
Our primary purpose at this time is to develop strategies for improving the status, pay and treatment of contingent academic labor in Chicago and its suburbs and to support efforts by other groups in public and private universities and colleges to do the same. Meetings so far have discussed contract negotiations at Columbia College, the emergence of a organizing committee in the city colleges, relations with NAFFE, planning for the upcoming COCAL meeting in Chicago, and many other concerns.
Reports have been circulating on the Chicago COCAL mailing list run by Joe Berry about the August 2006 conference in Vancouver. Follow the links below for more information:
Report from Jack Longmate (Oaxaca, B.C. "regularization", legislative efforts)
Steve Wilson on California's "60% Law"
Douglas Giles' statement at the Academic Freedom Panel
We have made these changes in our union structure and collective bargaining strategies because we believe that all post-secondary educators have equal value. It is a critical starting point for any substantial discussion about how we address the issue of contingent academic labour because our employers, of course, want to cherry-pick their way through postsecondary faculty. The employer wants to create arbitrary measures of who is important and who is not. They want to skew the compensation debate to enable their arbitrary choices. But most of all, the employer wants to pit educators against one another and use the disunity to create a post-secondary education environment that reflects their values and priorities.
This was sent out originally on the adj-l list on August 14, 2006 and is a quick summary of three of the presentations. Jack Longmate (jacklongmate@earthlink.net) teaches at Olympic College in Bremerton, Washington.
Joe Berry has compiled a list of articles specifically focusing on strategies for organizing contingent faculty. His list is limited to pieces that attempt a broader strategic focus across institutions and disciplines. Workshops at COCAL VI are planned to deepen and extend this discussion. Click on the link below.
Articles on Organizing Contingent Faculty
Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education by Joe Berry, is just out (2005) from Monthly Review Press and North American Alliance for Fair Employment. Look at http://www.reclaimingtheivorytower.org for full information, bulk ordering discounts, to join a group blog/discussion, or to invite Joe to speak at an event.
Karen Stanley of TESOL has updated her internet bibliography of articles, organizational pages, job sites and so on dealing with contingent academic labor. Follow the link below:
Contingent Labor on the Internet (Bibliography)
Christine Pfeiffer of P-FAC at Columbia College prepared an extensive report on health insurance options (and challenges) for the contract bargaining team at Columbia in December 2005. Although this was geared to helping Columbia adjuncts negotiate some kind of health coverage there, the review of options is thorough, clearly written, and extremely helpful in framing the issues. It's available for download here. Christine and others from Chicago COCAL will be bringing it to discussions at the upcoming AFT/NEA Higher Education Conference in Orlando in March 2006.
Get your copy of the report (PDF)
One of Christine's major conclusions is that trying to get employer-linked health coverage will continue to be very difficult (and not just for adjuncts), so we should focus on single-payer plans. One possible avenue is trying to shape the Illinois plan mandated by the Health Care Justice Act. For more information on this, consult the Campaign for Better Health Care website (they were one of the main advocates of this law).
At its November 2002 meeting, Chicago COCAL passed this resolution opposing war on Iraq:
Since our resolution, many other labor groups, including some in higher education, have also come out against the war. For more information, consult Anti-War Page.
Click on the buttons in the header above to find out what else is on this site. The site is still under construction, so suggestions, criticisms, corrections, and praise are all welcome. A brief description of the current contents follows:
The Links Page - other sites of interest to contingent academic labor.
Campus Equity Week 2001 - the site for the Chicago area, as it existed in the fall of 2001. It's now archived on this site and clicking here will open it in a new browser window.
Other Resources - mostly from Boston COCAL, this includes their Ten-Point Program and the University Code of Conduct.
Contact Page - use this to get on our e-mail list and to help us develop a list of contacts for news and action in the future.
Archive - old items retired from this page.
Last revised on August 29, 2010
by the Webmaster.