Faculty Equality Now
Faculty Equality Now
In a recent article, the New York Daily News reported that, although the great majority of CUNY’s more than 450,000 students are of black, Latino, or Asian origins, a predominant amount (about two-thirds) of the faculty members who teach those students are, not surprisingly, white. This lack of faculty representation is appalling, and all CUNY students, whether of color or not, should be concerned about the underlying forms of racial and ethnic inequality this fact represents. However, as bad as these figures are, there is another, equally insidious form of inequality actually built into the CUNY system: the inequality between the exploited adjuncts who teach the majority of classes at the university and the tenured and tenure-track faculty who enjoy the majority of the limited wages and benefits provided by the administration. While faculty diversity at CUNY may have stagnated and may still have a long way to go, the inequality between adjunct and tenure-track professors has actually continued to increase at an alarming pace.
Consider the following comparison. The ordinary assistant professor at a CUNY senior college usually teaches no more than three courses per semester at most, and makes on average upwards of $65,000 a year. The average adjunct lecturer, on the other hand, teaching the same number of courses, to many of the same students at the same college, makes on average only about $18,000 a year. Additionally, adjunct lecturers receive few, if any, of the extensive benefits enjoyed by an assistant professor, and almost none of the prestige and respect. Not counting the significant value of health and pension benefits, this means that the average non-adjunct faculty member makes at least $47,000 a year more than the average adjunct for much of the same work. Just a few years ago, before the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) finalized the current contract, that gap would have been about $43,000. Although the percentage difference is relatively the same, the actual gap in wages has continued to increase with each new contract. This is because the PSC, which represents both adjunct and non-adjunct faculty, has historically insisted on across the board wage increases for all of the employees it represents. While this decision to offer identical percentage increases to all union members may seem egalitarian on the surface, the result has been an ever widening salary gap between the haves and have nots at CUNY.
Despite the huge disparity in wages, a CUNY adjunct nonetheless does much of the same work as an assistant professor. For instance both adjunct and non-adjunct faculty members spend significant amounts of their time preparing lectures or class notes, developing syllabi, attending department meetings and professional development workshops, keeping regular office hours, advising students, writing letters of recommendation, performing community service, and, of course, creating, presenting, and publishing original scholarly research in their fields. To be fair, the requirements for tenure and the expectations for publication, as well as the amount of committee work, are intense for an assistant professor, and should not be underestimated. Yet pressures on adjuncts are no less intense, as they struggle to write their own book (the thesis), publish articles, and manage the various responsibilities of grad school life. And it goes without saying that they are a vital and indispensible part of the university and therefore deserve to be treated as such.
Winning respect, however, will not be easy. There are many who benefit from the two-tier system within the union and the university at large who would like to pretend there is no problem or, worse, think that by offering small concessions they can silence any opposition to further inequality and across the board wage increases. The first step in overcoming these forces and achieving greater faculty equality is to insure that our voices are heard and that adjuncts and graduate students at CUNY are properly represented by their union. On Tuesday April 6, the President of the PSC, Barbara Bowen, will be holding a contract discussion meeting at 12:30 in room 9205 of the Graduate Center. It is essential that adjuncts and graduate students who show up to this meeting be prepared with a list of real demands and a set of plausible rebuttals and arguments. Given the current state budget problems, the specter of austerity will no doubt be used again as an excuse for postponing any attempts to dismantle the two-tier labor system. While some adjuncts and graduate students might be content to allow themselves to be further exploited by seeking small fellowship increases, changes to workload restrictions, or longer contracts of continuous employment, it is imperative that we move beyond these petty ameliorations and address the fundamental inequalities of the two-tier labor system. CUNY adjuncts and graduate students represent the largest segment of workers both at CUNY and within the PSC and it is time that administration and the union began to recognize that. The adjuncts at CUNY must do more than merely complain; instead, we must begin to make real demands and offer real alternatives.
In this spirit, I would like to put forward the following three proposals as a starting point for future contract demands.
1. Increase the number of tenure-track faculty over the course of the contract by 1,000, with half of those new positions set aside exclusively for qualified CUNY adjuncts and graduate students:
While it is important to improve the working conditions of adjuncts at CUNY, the university must also address the fundamental ethical and pedagogical problems inherent in the use of adjunct labor by simultaneously reducing the number of future adjuncts while increasing the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty. In addition, the union must be urged to resist the awful compromise of dedicated full-time conversion lines, which, because they offer subpar wages, no tenure, and little real job security, only perpetuate the vast inequalities between the various faculty types, undermine tenure, and create yet another tier of faculty.
2. Begin to close the gap between adjunct and non-adjunct faculty by getting rid of across-the-board raises and increasing adjunct faculty wages by an additional 20 percent over the life of the contract.
Although this may sound like a no-brainer, this kind of increase will be incredibly controversial, especially for the tenured and tenure-track faculty who would by necessity have to take a smaller raise in order to increase wages for adjuncts. Despite the controversial nature of this move, however, this is the only way to address the growing gap in wage inequality at CUNY, and adjuncts should be prepared to vote NO on any contract that does not include some kind of significant differential increase in adjunct wages. If implemented this modest measure would shrink the annual income gap between a full-time adjunct and an assistant professor by approximately $3,600 over the life of the contract. Although this is an obviously small amount it is an important beginning and adjuncts would have to continue to struggle to insure that future contract negotiations would continue to chip away at this inequality till such time as an adjunct at the top step teaching six courses per year is paid no less than two-thirds of the average wage for an assistant professor at CUNY. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education the average salary for an assistant professor at Lehman College in the 2008-2009 academic year was $64,700, meaning an adjunct lecturer making just two-thirds of an assistant professor’s salary would be making approximately $43,100. Though this is not much, it is a livable wage and would be fair compensation for all the work that adjuncts do.
3. Provide adjunct faculty teaching at least two courses per semester with all of the same benefits as tenure track faculty, including full health insurance coverage, paid family and parental leave, and pension benefits.
Ironically one of the most devastating advances in the last contract was the paid parental leave benefit. The union fought hard to win this vital benefit for its tenured and tenure-track faculty, giving up other advances (thus is the nature of contract negotiations), but no adjuncts, even those teaching four and five classes per semester (who, under any measure would be considered full-time employees) are eligible. This kind of separate and unequal treatment of faculty, where one group is held to be more deserving of fundamental benefits like decent health insurance and paid parental and family leave, is unacceptable.
Solving the problem of the two-tier labor system at CUNY will not be easy, especially given the current economic crisis, but now is our chance to set the agenda for the struggle that needs to follow.
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