[PEN-L:30014] Re: Re: Re: The New University Underclass

[Ben Day <day@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 02:58 PM 9/2/2002 -0700, joanna bujes wrote:
> The current situation in academia is the triumph of divide and rule
> tactics. It is an enraging, nauseating situation. However, if current
> drifts continue (what is it presently?... 70% non-tenured, 30% tenured
> nation-wide?), it will simply come to this: that by dint of sheer numbers,
> politically conscious, organized non-tenured staff can bring the
> university to a complete stand-still.
>
> This is a big IF, but it remains the case that nothing but political
> consciousness and action can give non-tenured staff a living wage. Notice
> that this is the reverse of the situation in the sixties and seventies,
> when the carrot of tenure essentially disabled the academic
> intelligentsia. Now they have nothing to lose. And, if they struggle and
> win, it will be a very different (politically conscious) teaching staff
> standing in front of the students in future years.

Hi Joanna - I posted figures and some comments on this a few weeks ago:

http://www.mail-archive.com/pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg72110.html

From: Ben Day
Subject: Re: plastic vs. ivory
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 19:03:50 -0700
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[...]

The academic labor market has also seen an immense growth in non-standard
work - mostly part-time contingent faculty, but with some innovative
variations (Northeastern a while back pioneered the three-year full-time
professorship - I'm not sure if or how this worked out).  The AAUP reports
that, currently, 43% of faculty are part-time, and that over half are
non-tenure track (http://www.aaup.org/Issues/part-time/index.htm). Almost
no part-timers receive benefits, and the pay is a fraction of that full
professors receive for the same work.

Due to the departmental structure of most colleges and universities, U.S.
courts have long classified faculty as pseudo-managerial and made it
illegal for them to unionize at private institutions (state laws usually
allow faculty at public schools to unionize, though). However, since most
departments exclude part-timers from departmental bureaucracies, this has
become a new sector for organizing campaigns. I remember when the
part-timers at Emerson College won a union vote by an overwhelming margin,
it came out that over 70% of Emerson's faculty was part-time, which is just
incredible. (As an aside note - undergraduate resident assistants at the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst recently won the first undergrad union
in the country, joining the UAW.)

All of this is totally at odds with a generalized notion of the "ivory
tower." Although I'm sure such a thing exists, it's not the experience of
most higher ed. faculty. The academic underclass is rapidly becoming a
majority, if it isn't already.

------Ben