Charles J. Loiacono, President

The Adjunct Faculty Association, An Independent Union of Adjuncts

at

Nassau Community College

What is a union? E Pluribus Unum, United We Stand? Divided We Fall, Solidarity Forever, One for All and All for One. Whether you believe these sayings to be flowery adages or mottoes to live by, they have been the standard for musketeers and nations alike? no less for unions. Unions have always organized and existed because of the need of workers to act together. That need grew out of the realization that another adage was true ?In Unity There is Strength.

So it has been with the Adjunct Faculty Association. In 1973, the need to act together became dire. Adjuncts were treated like unnecessary appendages? no raises, no rights, no involvement, no respect, and no representation. That is when the adjuncts at NCC organized and became a local in the AFT, separate from the full-time local.

With the signing of the first contract in 1974, things changed for adjuncts at NCC. Adjunct rights were delineated in a document that carried the force of law. Adjuncts won the right to collegial ranking, sick pay, terminal leave pay, salary increments, salary differentials, regular contractual raises, guaranteed assignment procedures, and many other rights described in a 30-page contract. By far, the most important right won by the AFA was the right to job security. That right was codified in a strong seniority provision backed up by a strong grievance procedure.

The AFA is a union in the strictest sense of the word. Being independent and having its own jurisdiction, the AFA is ahead of its time. While adjuncts continue to be exploited on campuses all around the country, working sans contracts at the pleasure of their administrations, the adjuncts at NCC work under the terms and conditions of a contract negotiated on their behalf by an elected leadership and ratified by themselves the membership. The AFA jurisdiction is inviolable. All courses not part of a full-time program are designated courses for adjunct assignment to be assigned according to the terms and conditions of the AFA Contract.

Soon after becoming a local in the AFT, the full-time union (also a local of the AFT) sought to absorb our organization so that the adjunct faculty could be relegated to the subservient position of other adjuncts in academe. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, the AFA disaffiliated. We have been independent for more than 20 years. And that has made all the difference.

We have achieved more than any other adjunct faculty because we are independent. There is an insurmountable conflict of interest on the part of full-time faculty when they are responsible for negotiating adjunct rights. Adjuncts inevitably must yield to the full-time belief that they have proprietary rights to adjunct jobs. At NCC, only adjuncts have proprietary rights to adjunct jobs.

The future for all adjuncts lies in independence.