Part-Time Faculty Grapple with State Laws
Keith Hoeller, Charles H. Seibert
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to "Laws Affecting Part-Time Faculty Surveyed" in the November–December issue. I appreciate the AAUP’s survey of the state laws affecting part-time faculty, but unfortunately the report omitted many of the precedent-setting gains we have made in Washington State over the past six years.
In 1995 a state-mandated "best practices" audit of the treatment of part-time faculty jump-started the part-time faculty movement in our state. The audit report provided principles for best practices, addressing such issues as sick leave and academic freedom for part-time professors. Also in 1995, our state legislature passed a law making it clear that part-time faculty did not have "reasonable assurance" of future employment and thus did qualify for unemployment insurance when they were unemployed through no fault of their own.
In 1999 our state legislature lowered the TIAA-CREF retirement eligibility threshold from 80 to 50 percent of a full-time teaching load for part-time faculty. The threshold for state-paid medical benefits for part-time faculty had been set at 50 percent back in the 1980s.
The same year, the legislature passed a bill providing up to $20 million to increase part-time faculty pay, which went up from 43 percent of a full-time salary (for teaching a full-time load) to 53 percent. Some part-time faculty saw their salaries increase by 15 percent, or nearly $300 a course, in one biennium.
The 2000 legislature passed a bill mandating that colleges offer part-time faculty sick leave prorated on the percentage of a full-time teaching load. The bill allowed the part-time faculty to participate in the state’s shared-leave program for the first time.
In November 2000, Washington State voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative granting automatic cost-of-living raises to our state’s K–12 and community and technical college faculty, including part-time instructors. The current 2001 legislative session is considering allocating another $20 million toward increasing part-time faculty salaries.
All of this could not have been accomplished without the leadership of sympathetic legislators. I am also pleased to say that an informal working coalition has been formed to lobby for the part-time faculty. In addition to the Washington Part-Time Faculty Association, of which I am a co-founder, the Washington Federation of Teachers and the Washington Education Association have worked together to pass significant legislation. Hundreds of part-time faculty members (and sympathetic full-time colleagues) across the state have become politically activated.
Thanks to a sympathetic legislature, we may well be leading the nation in finding new ways to improve the working conditions of part-time faculty.
Keith Hoeller
Washington Part-Time Faculty Association
To the Editor:
The article titled "Laws Affecting Part-Time Faculty Surveyed" in the November–December issue states that in Ohio, "part-time employees are excluded from collective bargaining." Though I am not a lawyer, I believe this reading is mistaken. The Ohio Revised Code excludes "part-time faculty members of an institution of higher education" from the definition of "public employee." Such language surely hinders bargaining attempts, but nowhere in this part of the code is bargaining specifically banned.
The importance of this language is simple. First, it makes part-time faculty invisible. Rather than recognizing part-time faculty by forbidding them to do something, the law just doesn’t recognize them at all. Second, the statement that part-time faculty are "excluded from collective bargaining" has been repeated over the years by full-time faculty, university administrators, and AAUP officials. (As a part-time faculty member between 1972 and 1994, I often heard this response.) Repetition has allowed faculty, administrators, and the AAUP alike to avoid confronting the shoddy way that part-time faculty are treated.
Hindering the legal right to collective bargaining, which is what Ohio law does, is nasty politics. On the other hand, I know of no legal reason why part-time faculty may not energetically insist on bargaining with the AAUP or university administrators for a place at the table. And there is no reason why university administrators or the AAUP may not do the just thing and initiate negotiations with part-time faculty employees. (Recent interest by the AAUP in part-time faculty is welcome. I am chair of the Committee on Part-Time and Non-Tenure-Track Appointments for the University of Cincinnati’s AAUP chapter. This letter is, however, an expression of personal opinion.) We can do much better here, and improvement begins with stating the facts more clearly.
Charles H. Seibert
(Philosophy)
University of Cincinnati
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