One of the last of this semester’s crop of grievances has been settled in favor of the AFA. This one involved an internship class that was assigned to a faculty member that the chair knew would be in China while the course was in session. The AFA initiated the grievance on the grounds that the chair knew that the teacher of record would be in China. Therefore, the chair should never have made that assignment, but should have assigned the class to the grievant that was available and able to supervise and assist the interns as required.

The grievant in this case will get seniority and payment for the class in question. The teacher that had been assigned will lose a semester of seniority. This conclusion could only have been reached because of the strength of the contract and the vigilance of the department representative, the contract administrator, and the grievance chairman of the AFA.  What distinguishes this case from others recently settled is that the AFA won this at step 2 in the grievance procedure. This is unusual, but an indication of the validity of the union’s position.

            Justice has once again been served, and it  is rewarding to be a part of a process that has brought similar results to so many of our fellow adjuncts.

            The fact that the AFA CBA provides a cloak of protection for its members stands in stark contrast to the fate of adjuncts in the rest on the nation. They toil at the pleasure of any number of chairs, directors, or administrators.

Even here at Nassau, according to a “deep throat” source, members of the LINCC faculty are under the constant fear of dismissal without recourse, because they work without the protection of a union. Of course, having a cadre of employees that work at the pleasure of the employer was the purpose in creating the ELI/LINCC scam. We still await decisions from an arbitrator, a PERB administrative law judge, and the Nassau County Supreme Court.

When you think of it, this is a great deal of fire power to expend over what should have been a simple problem to resolve.

            Around the rest of the nation adjuncts work, as ever, unprotected. It is clear that without their own unions adjuncts are always easy prey.

              In a recent article by Keith Hoeller,  co-founder of the Washington Part–Time Faculty Association  and chair of the Adjunct Faculty Committee Washington State Conference AAUP, Professor Hoeller re-emphasized the point that part-time faculty must have their own unions and stand independent of full-time unions. He quotes figures that show that part-timers are paid about one-third the salary of full timers. In addition, adjuncts in Washington State are limited to three month contracts, no year-to-year job security and of course no other benefits such as health care and pensions. This while the adjuncts outnumber the full-time faculty 7,083 to 3,509 in the state university system, and make it possible to deliver a college education to thousands of students who would otherwise not be able to attend college at all.

            Adjunct faculty here on Long Island that are represented by NYSUT through their full-time unions know that their situation is not much different from that of their colleagues in Washington State.

            At Suny Old Westbury, adjuncts started the semester without being provided contracts to sign. It took a letter to Comptroller Tom DiNapoli to move the college to provide the contracts.  That letter came from our own Professor Margaret Renner of the Reading Department who has established a reputation for tenacity  and getting  things done in New York and especially on Long Island.

            Adjuncts at Old Westbury are part of the full-time union and NYSUT. For the dues they pay they get nothing but disillusionment and frustration