Advocate Online

The Dialogue Question:
Should full-time faculty and adjunct faculty be in the same bargaining unit?

Yes, we in the Minnesota two-year state colleges could not imagine it any other way.

JoAnn Roche *

Contingent, or part-time, faculty should be in the same bargaining unit as tenure track, full-time faculty. Faculty bargaining unit work should be governed by one contract and performed by members of one union.

A major goal of contingent faculty is to be treated as much like full-time faculty as possible. Minnesota part-time faculty share in all the benefits and responsibilities of full-time faculty on a pro-rata basis, including such benefits as salary, insurance, and tuition waiver. Temporary full-time faculty service counts toward sabbatical leave and probation completion, and all part-time service converts to seniority on the full-time roster when a part-timer is hired full-time. Full-time conversion is even mandatory after a certain amount of service. How could such benefits be possible without all faculty working under the same contract?

A contract is only as good as the enforcement of it. Vulnerable part-time faculty are often reluctant to file grievances and are very easily abused. A tenured grievance representative needs to file a union—not an individual—grievance to protect the vulnerable victim. We in Minnesota believe the best thing the union can do for part-time faculty is to create as many full-time jobs as possible. We have negotiated hiring practices language which ensures that 70 percent of our bargaining unit work is done by full-time faculty.

Finally, the ultimate weapon a union has to achieve its goals is a strike. With full- and part-time faculty in one union, it is far easier to conduct a successful strike.

Benefits and protections for the collective as well as for the individual are more effectively won and maintained when all faculty are in one bargaining unit.

* JoAnn Roche, the liberal arts vice president for the Minnesota State College Faculty, NEA/AFT, teaches English at Mesabi-Range Community and Technical College in Virginia, Minnesota. She began her career as an adjunct and has been a full-time faculty member since 1985.

No, separate units give both full- and part-timers a stronger voice by doubling the union leadership.

Tom Tipton *

In 1998 before adjuncts had organized at my institution, I argued unsuccesfully to my full-time colleagues to bring them into our bargaining unit, as recommended in the NEA's Report and Recommendations on Part-time, Temporary & Nontenure Track Faculty Appointments (1987). At that time, I believed adjuncts would not otherwise organize. So, why do I now support the idea of separate bargaining units here at the College of DuPage?

Our part-time colleagues, it turns out, did organize on their own, and since then I have seen numerous examples of how full-time and adjunct faculty can be mutually supportive, particularly within our institution's constituency-based, shared governance structure, and in interactions with trustees. During my term as president of the full-time faculty association, the two bargaining units spoke with equal voices around the same leadership tables. Adjuncts were not relegated to a mere "me too" of full-timers.

Moreover, the fear that the two units would compete for ever smaller slices of the same pie has proved illusory here. During the last contract negotiations both units gained equivalent and good salary increases, despite the institution's growing funding concerns. On the other hand, our Classified Personnel Association, which is not affiliated with a labor union, seems to be losing ground. Perhaps this is the moral of the story: the difference between combined units and separate units is not as significant as the difference between affiliated and unaffiliated organizations.

Having separate units allows each unit to focus on its unique concerns, while doubling the union leadership at an institution. In this case two heads are better than one.

*Thomas F. Tipton is a professor of English at College of DuPage (IL), a former part-timer, and past president of the full-time faculty association. When not grading essays, he works to strengthen faculty solidarity. He has four children and a very understanding wife.