Theme: Part-time issues

Equal pay for equal work nationwide

New York, Washington, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania — these are just a few of the states that have made significant progress in recent years in addressing the concerns of growing numbers of low-paid, part-time faculty. But much more must still be done before part-timers across the country even come close to achieving pay equity with their full-time, tenure-track peers.

The erosion of full-time, tenure-track faculty positions and their replacement by a growing, and exploited, army of part-time and other non-tenure-track faculty is “one of the most dangerous trends in higher education today,” said UUP President William Scheuerman.

At SUNY, the percentage of faculty considered part-time increased from 27.6 at the 29 state-operated campuses in 1991-92 to 37.1 in 2000-01, with a corresponding drop in the percentage of full-time faculty, according to UUP’s Research Department.

Nationwide, part-timers made up nearly 43 percent of the faculty in 1998, up from 38 percent in 1987, according to a 1998 AFT report, “The Vanishing Professor.” The increase appears to have slowed down somewhat since then, said Craig Smith, assistant director of the AFT Higher Education Department, but there are still intense trouble spots.

“If you look at community colleges, it’s well over 50 percent part-timers,” he added. Plus, non-tenure-track, full-time faculty increased from 9 percent of all faculty in 1993 to 18 percent in 1998, Smith said. To turn up the volume on the debate over part-timers and to focus attention on the issue nationwide, UUP and its national affiliate, AFT, are joining numerous other labor, academic and professional organizations — including the American Association of University Professors, the National Education Association and the Communication Workers of America — to sponsor Campus Equity Week from Oct. 28 to Nov. 3.

While participants will sponsor a variety of events throughout the week to highlight the increasing use and abuse of part-time, non-tenure-track teaching assistants and other contingent labor in colleges and universities, Monday, Oct. 29, has been designated as the official kick-off day for AFT locals, including UUP.

“The idea is to bring attention to the plight of part-time faculty on the nation’s campuses, as well as celebrate their role in contributing to higher education,” said Phillip Smith, UUP statewide vice president for academics. A wide range of events is being planned — from rallies to teach-ins and meetings with local legislators to skits and musical entertainment that focus on the issue.

Susan Levy, AFT coordinator for Campus Equity Week, said some locals are planning to pass out bags of peanuts to symbolize the low pay of part-timers, while others will pass out thermometers to call attention to a lack of health insurance for many part-timers. Some slogans for the week include: “No Academic Sweatshops” and “Equal Pay for Equal Work.”

Levy noted that in Washington state, where she previously served as president of the Washington Federation of Teachers (WFT), the union launched an equity drive in recent years to get the state Legislature to increase the pay of part-time faculty. The WFT won a 20 percent pay increase over two years. She added that, in California, a statewide campaign for legislative support for part-timers’ issues resulted in substantial progress in both stopping the erosion of the full-time faculty corps and improving part-timers’ compensation and benefits.

“If a statewide campaign can have such an impact, a nationwide campaign will raise the issue still further as a societal problem,” Levy said.

Levy said that part-timers typically earn 40 percent to 50 percent what full-timers would earn for a particular course. “They do the bulk of the teaching in most systems, but they’re just not paid fairly,” she said.

“The bottom line in many instances is pay equity,” said AFT’s Smith. “Part-time faculty should be treated with respect and be given the same kind of benefits as full-time faculty.”

Fayez Samuel, co-chair of UUP’s statewide Part-Time Concerns Committee and a part-time faculty member himself at SUNY Farmingdale, noted that UUP has been a leader in achieving better pay and benefits for part-timers, but there is more work to be done.

Samuel, who has been teaching part-time at Farmingdale and one or two private campuses for more than 16 years, said that Farmingdale often passes over part-timers when full-time positions do open up.

Glenn McNitt, president of the UUP chapter at SUNY New Paltz, agreed that UUP has made considerable progress on the part-timer issue. He hopes Campus Equity Week will spur other states to action. New Paltz, where at least 49 percent of the faculty are part-time, has been focusing on the issue for the past four years, McNitt said.

Scheuerman said he hopes the successes in New York and elsewhere will “inject the movement for part-time rights with a healthy dose of hope.”

He added: “The significant achievements of AFT affiliates across the nation prove that focused, creative and relentless work on behalf of a part-time faculty agenda can have an enormous impact.”

— Karen Nelis