Category: eBulletins

First Contract for Adjunct Faculty Ratified!

The Temple Association of University Professionals (TAUP), the union representing 2800 full-time and part-time faculty, full-time librarians, and academic professionals at Temple University, has approved a new collective bargaining agreement that includes adjuncts for the first time and offers gains for everyone in the union. The vote–with 97% of those who voted voting “yes”–affirms the strength of the newly-enlarged Union. If Temple’s Board of Trustees votes to ratify at their meeting next Tuesday, the contract will go into effect.

Adjuncts voted to join the bargaining unit in November of 2015, and this contract initiates a new era for the Union. The inclusion of adjuncts means that all teaching faculty at the schools TAUP represents have a voice in improving the working conditions at the University.

“By ratifying this contract, our membership is sending a clear message that both adjunct and full-time faculty deserve high-quality working conditions when teaching our students. Now that we’ll all be working under the same contract and bargaining together in 2019, we’ll be in a stronger position to insist that the necessary improvements occur,” said Steve Newman, President of TAUP.  Jennie Shanker, Vice President of TAUP added:  “The University has not treated adjuncts as professionals. Because of that, those who have been interested in pursuing teaching as a career have had to struggle. This hasn’t kept us from wanting to perform at our best for our students. Having a union contract brings  the University one step closer to acknowledging that as an employer, it is responsible for providing equitable working conditions for everyone who educates Temple students.”

This new contract will expire in 2019 for both full-time and part-time members. That means that for the first time in 2019, the entire union, including all faculty, librarians and academic professionals, will be able to negotiate together in solidarity. This replaces an earlier fulltime contract that would have expired in 2018.

The contract also:

  • Provides processes and protections on academic freedom, workload, discipline/dismissal, and grievance and arbitration;
  • Raises the minimum rate of pay for adjuncts immediately from $1300/credit hour to $1425 and then by July 1st, 2018 to $1500–a 15% increase. Since most Temple courses are 3 credits, this means a $600 increase per course;
  • Makes it easier to qualify for health benefit subsidies;
  • Creates labor-management committees to investigate job security, promotion, affirmative action and office space;
  • Extends the current contract (which covers full-time faculty, librarians and academic professionals), including the raise from the previous year and staving off any increase in health-care costs. This protects employees at a moment of uncertainty while the state budget remains in limbo, and allowing all TAUP constituencies to come together for negotiations in 2019.

Nationally, awareness has been growing around the harsh working conditions of adjuncts at many institutions since the 2013 death of long-term Duquesne University adjunct Margaret Mary Vojtko. Since then adjunct organizing has increased, involving unions such as SEIU, UAW,  the NEA, and TAUP’s national union, AFT.

Locally, TAUP is hopeful about what this win could mean for other local academic union organizing campaigns and negotiations, including upcoming talks between Temple and its graduate student union (TUGSA), and ongoing efforts led by the AFT’s United Academics of Philadelphia in negotiations at Arcadia University and in organizing graduate students at Penn (GET-UP).

 

TAUP Stadium Survey Invitation

Recent comments by university officials indicate that the plan to build a 35000-seat on-campus football stadium continues to be considered, though reportedly no final decision has been made.  It is possible that this will be a topic of discussion at the Board of Trustees meeting on October 10th.

This decision would have significant economic effects, thereby affecting the issues that TAUP negotiates over, and it would have profound effects of many kinds on the university our members serve.   TAUP thus believes it is particularly important that faculty, librarians, and academic professionals make their views known now.  While there have been meetings between administrators and faculty at many schools and with representatives from the Faculty Senate, there has no been no attempt to gauge the opinions of our members as a whole.

So we would appreciate it if you would respond to the following survey, which is designed to gauge the attitudes of all members of our bargaining unit, give faculty more of a voice in this discussion, and provide guidance to TAUP about our members’ concerns as we look toward bargaining a new contract in 2019.  Responses will remain anonymous.  We will report the findings in a future e-Bulletin.

An FAQ from the administration on the stadium, which makes a case for the project, can be found here.  Some columns in The Faculty Herald raising questions about the wisdom of building a stadium can be found here. A recent story on The Stadium Stompers, a community group opposing the stadium, can be found here.

Responses will be collected by TAUP only and only aggregate responses and discursive responses with any identifying information stripped will be shared.  You do not have to be a TAUP member to participate.

The survey link is http://www.surveyshare.com/s/AYACH3A.
Use the full email address at which you received this message (e.g. firstname.lastname@temple.edu) as your unique login to access the survey. Please contact the TAUP office (taupaft@gmail.com) if you experience problems.

Sincerely,

Steve Newman, President
Jennie Shanker, Vice President
Norma Corrales-Martin, Treasurer

An Adjunct Couple Speaks for Contract Ratification

Our names are Canan and James. We’re partners and we both teach as adjunct faculty in the Department of Sociology. As adjunct faculty at Temple University, we deserve to be recognized as workers who contribute to the university’s mission to provide excellence in teaching to Temple’s diverse and engaged student population. That’s why we’re excited to be members of TAUP and ratify our first-ever union contract with an overwhelming YES  vote.

We all know too well that adjunct labor and the particular difficulties of adjunct life often remain hidden. In many cases, full-time faculty have never met the adjunct faculty in their own departments who teach a large portion of the classes and keep departments running.  Most students don’t really know if their instructor is an adjunct, and if they do, what that means for our day-to-day life. Many don’t  know what a low percentage of the tuition they pay actually goes toward paying their adjunct instructors.

Ratifying this contract will give adjuncts an immediate pay bump from $1300/credit to $1425, and another raise next year to $1500. It provides 50% and 25% health care subsidies to adjuncts.  It also lays the groundwork for adjuncts to build meaningful job security, seniority, and a promotion structure into future contracts. This contract shines light on our conditions as precarious adjunct labor, and recognizes adjuncts not simply as miscellaneous faces in the crowd, but as significant workers who put our time and energy into educating Temple’s diverse student population.

Uniting with full-time faculty in the bargaining process provides space for us to share our mutual concerns and use our strength in numbers to win. By working under a contract, adjunct faculty can begin to work towards obtaining the rights to a basic and decent livelihood that all university workers deserve. All members of TAUP will have the opportunity to ratify this contract between September 25 – 29 in an online vote. Add your name here if you plan on helping our first contract pass with an overwhelming YES vote.

In solidarity,
Canan Tanir

James Parisot

Adjunct Instructors, Sociology