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From the President: We Must Help Those Most in Need
By Cary Nelson
Every AAUP member is aware of the overwhelming increase in the use of contingent teachers throughout the academy. Most do not have protection against arbitrary dismissal. Many are at risk of paying with their jobs if they challenge their students’ core beliefs. Far too many lack the fundamental benefits of fair employment—a living wage, health care, peer review, due process, vestment in a retirement system. Their academic freedom is either imperiled or nonexistent.
We have thoughtful policy statements recommending good practices in these employment categories. We are investigating violations of the rights of contingent teachers. Those of our collective bargaining chapters that have contingent cohorts on their campuses are helping them organize. Yet this is not enough to preserve the integrity of an industry under assault. If, for example, we want to make the principles laid out in Regulation 13 of the AAUP’s Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure (which affirms the right of part-time faculty to a greater degree of job security and academic due process) a national norm, we must help our contingent colleagues organize.
The AAUP’s present dues schedule often makes it impossible to do so. Many campuses with large groups of contingent teachers do not have collective bargaining for their tenure-track and tenured faculty. There is thus no existing faculty union to help organize contingent teachers or to coordinate joint services after they win recognition. Our national dues for graduate student employees and part-time faculty in collective bargaining—about $45 a year—are not enough to fund stand-alone representation for them.
Total dues for our faculty locals, set by the chapters themselves, run about 1 percent of salary. Chapters have been able to help organize contingent teachers on their campuses at that dues level, but that level of dues does not provide enough income for the national AAUP to organize stand-alone contingent units. Other national unions often set dues at 1.8 to 2 percent, even for graduate student employees or part-time faculty. Proper allocation between the national union and the local chapter makes it possible to hire local staff and provide some services from the national office. Larger locals may need two full-time staff members to run a business office, along with paid release time for organizers, a grievance officer, and a contract negotiator. The national AAUP can then help formulate campaign strategy and provide continuing assistance in contract negotiations, along with scholarships to our Summer Institute. A sufficient dues schedule for contingent teachers is a necessary standard to be met if the AAUP is to play a meaningful role in that sector of collective bargaining.
If the AAUP wants to organize those college teachers most in need, we must change our national dues for new (not existing) stand-alone graduate student employee and contingent faculty locals in collective bargaining. It will not be easy to find a formula that will be fair, financially viable, and compatible with our values. But we must try. If we can work out the details, the change could be scheduled to take effect when we implement restructuring and the AAUP’s Collective Bargaining Congress becomes a 501(c)(5) labor union. Then we could take advantage of potential future changes in National Labor Relations Board rulings or legislation on graduate student employee bargaining that has been introduced in Congress.
Even with all these elements in place, we would need to be very cautious before joining a local campaign. My view is that we would need to concentrate on no more than one or two likely prospects with potential bargaining units of at least two thousand members. A graduate student employee local is a more likely first goal than a part-time faculty one. Succeeding would bring in enough income to enable us to appoint another staff member in the AAUP’s national Department of Organizing and Services to concentrate on this area. We do not now have the resources to initiate campaigns nationwide, and we do not have the resources to organize small locals. Passing the necessary dues changes does not, therefore, in any way guarantee that we can begin organizing. It will merely help position us to do so if the right possibility emerges. I have begun discussing this idea with the CBC Executive Committee, the Executive Committee of the Council,and the membership committee, and I welcome your comments.
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