“What brought us to the Union?” is a question that we often ask ourselves in the Executive Council. As an adjunct, it’s easy to feel alienated and powerless in the place(s) that you work, even though we teach as many student credit hours as tenure track faculty and make up the largest proportion of faculty (47%) on campus. Many of us are Road Scholars, commuting from campus to campus, teaching one class here and one class there and another class way over there. We are the New Majority on most of the campuses that we teach. Yet, we have no representation in the faculty senate therefore no voice in the curriculum that WE teach. We have very little job security and are paid less per credit hour than our non-tenure track colleagues. And, offices—don’t get us started on that...but stay tuned for a spring campaign to address it!
We’re not the only ones on campus who are affected by the corporatization and underfunding of higher education. The Board of Trustees voted unanimously to raise tuition 9% in the fall for in-state students (this on top of a 4% increase from last year), bringing undergraduate tuition and fees to $9,030 a year and in-state graduate costs to $15,816 a year. This increase is hard to swallow, especially when a member of our Board has profited so much off the student loan business. Tuition increases alone won’t fix the deficit, so the university is also looking to make $9 million in cuts, which will likely include “targeted personnel reductions” of $2.85 million.
So, what brings us to the Union? Given our current political climate, locally and nationally, a unified voice for workers is more important than ever. By joining together, we can go on the offense and build broad based campaigns that demand common good solutions to win progressive revenue and advance community fights for debt-free education, pay equity, and 15 NOW!
This is your Union and we need your participation more than ever. There are a lot of ways to get involved. You can be regularly involved by joining a Committee, you can join us in the streets on MAY DAY, you can write a letter to the editor, you can come to the next Executive Council Meeting, or you can start a campaign (and we’ll support you). And you if haven’t filled out your membership form, we encourage you to do it now (remember there are no additional dues). Continue reading for more important news, events, and updates!
In Solidarity,
The Executive Council