Advocate Online

They're Talking On Campus.

. . .About Campus Equity Week October 27 through November 1, when thousands of part-time and adjunct professors organized activities to raise awareness about sub-par pay and working conditions for most part-timers. NEA affiliates in California, Washington, Illinois, Oregon, and other states took part, joining activists at colleges and universities around the nation and in Canada.

Highlights included Washington state, where Governor Gary Locke designated October 29 “Adjunct and Part-Time Faculty Recognition Day.”

In Washington, D.C., Representative Dale Kildee (D-MI) introduced a resolution spotlighting the plight of part-time faculty, the need for greater fairness and equity, and the importance of full-time faculty.

. . . About part-time faculty at Macomb Community College in Michigan and the College of DuPage in Illinois. Faculty members celebrated Campus Equity Week by voting for collective bargaining and union representation by the Michigan and Illinois Education Associations, respectively.

Faculty at Macomb won the right to an election after a lengthy organizing campaign, followed by two years of litigation that resulted in a precedent-setting decision. The ruling outlined minimum standards for adjunct faculty bargaining unit eligibility in Michigan where none previously existed.

The bargaining election at DuPage that expanded the existing part-time union was made possible by an IEA political victory—the passage of an IEA-supported change in the Illinois labor law to include more adjunct faculty.