03/21/2014
United Steelworkers union organizers are
targeting part-time faculty at Point Park University, prompting
complaints that the adjuncts feel intimidated when the organizers show
up unannounced where professors teach and live.
In emailed letters to faculty, Point Park
President Paul Hennigan said the campaign to organize a collective
bargaining unit, begun in December, has been punctuated with
misinformation and triggered complaints from adjunct faculty members who
said they felt “intimidated” or “uncomfortable” when union organizers
popped up at professors' classrooms and homes.
Union organizer Robin Sowards said
representatives of the Adjuncts' Association of the USW have approached
adjuncts in their homes and at the Downtown campus.
“It's normal in all union organizing
campaigns to meet with workers on site and at their homes. This is a
democratic process, and people need to be educated about it. None of our
organizers are doing anything intimidating,” Sowards said.
Hennigan, who declined to be interviewed,
reached out to Point Park's more than 300 part-time faculty members on
Wednesday, saying he contacted the union about the complaints.
“The president of the USW agreed that
organizers' presence in and around classrooms was inappropriate and
indicated that this conduct would cease,” said Hennigan.
USW organizer Maria Somma, however, said union officials did not declare the campus out of bounds, only classrooms.
“We want to respect the classroom. We have never interrupted any class,” Somma said.
Organizers and Point Park officials are scheduled to meet for the first time on Wednesday.
Point Park is among many universities that
rely heavily on adjuncts to teach courses. According to the U.S.
Department of Education, adjuncts account for nearly three-quarters of
the instructors on American college campuses, up from 43 percent in
1975.
In most cases, they are hired on a
course-by-course basis and have little or no access to benefits, which
sparked the establishment of the New Faculty Majority, a national
support group aimed at improving the lot of part-time professors.
Point Park says full-time faculty members
teach more than half of the classes at the school. Adjuncts, who may
teach up to three courses a semester, account for 72 percent of the
faculty, according to the university. The university has 314 adjuncts
for the spring semester and 125 full-time faculty.
At the school, average salaries for
full-time faculty range from $87,857 a year for full professors to
$54,426 for assistant professors. Part-time teachers are paid from
$2,091 to $2,727 per course.
Mary Grace Gainer, who teaches two English
writing courses at Point Park and has a doctoral degree, has been an
adjunct college teacher for seven years.
“I get the sense that adjuncts there are ready for a change,” she said.
Last year, Gainer had a full-time, temporary
faculty appointment at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. When that
ended in the fall, she scrambled to make ends meet.
Today she juggles her days between Point
Park and Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she's teaching three
English writing courses this semester.
“Nobody is doing this out of spite or to
make the university look bad. We're doing this because we're paid quite
poorly here. Why is it that people are paid so low here, only $2,100 or
$2,200?” Gainer asked.
In an emailed letter to adjunct faculty last
month, Hennigan wrote that many of Point Park's part-time teachers are
“practicing professionals” who “teach only one or two courses per
semester, since they have full-time positions elsewhere in their field
of expertise.”
Sowards questioned that assertion.
“I have talked to many adjuncts (at Point Park) who are not in that position,” the organizer said.
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