I’ve had several interesting responses to the health-care question. More on that later, as the primary season heats up.
In the meanwhile, I’ve had a commentator respond to both of my posts so far at Brainstorm, neither really on-topic, both expressing a perfectly understandable anger at the tenured. I’ll just share one of the comments and my response:
- Once again, how about some tales from MB about how he and other tenured faculty have themselves worked “in the trenches”, so to speak, for the betterment of the lives of adjuncts….
The dirty little open secret of academe is that faculty in large universities teach only one or two courses per semester (indeed, once tenured, whether or not they actually do engage in research – which has prompted the invention of academic freedom-endangering “post-tenure” reviews). The contingent labor force exists to support that system of abandoned, trickle-down work.
So, when we see the MacDonald’s drive-by faculty who must live from the crumbs that fall from the table of the high-priced faculty in the professions and sciences (to a lesser degree,the humanities), well, just where exactly is reform supposed to start?
Look homeward, angel….
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Feb 7, 10:45 AM · #
- Actually, I find your resentment perfectly understandable. Not only that, I think your complaint has more validity than you might expect—because in a very real sense, the tenure stream has morphed into the candidate pool for administration. Of course a number in the tenure stream have and will remain primarily researchers. Others primarily teach.
But the numbers are clear. As administrative positions multiply and the tenure stream shrinks toward a quarter of the faculty, or less, one of the largest functions of the tenure process is to produce candidates for administration.
One unpleasant conclusion that has to be drawn from this, AH Advocate, is that you can’t expect much from the tenured in terms of “reform” on behalf of the contingent. The contingent are the faculty, by an overwhelming majoirity. They are the only realistic agent of change. Unionize—force enabling legislation—wildcat if you must. But you are perfectly correct, I fear, that waiting for the tenured to fix things will be a long haul, indeed. Solidarity, M
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Comments
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 9:51 am and is filed under Precarity, academic labor system, coming attractions, solidarity and a tiered workforce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I’d like to see you talk about these issues with a bit more specificity. Although at my university many t and tt faculty do end up in administration, it is a minority of them. I look around me, at my state teaching university, and I see beleagured t and tt faculty teaching a 4/4 load while still expected to research for t, retention, and advancement on a wage that is laughable for this part of the nation. Our adjunct faculty are unionized, have health care, and even have a degree of job security. Don’t get me wrong: I was an adjunct here before I got the tt position (I’m one of the few very lucky ones) and it is a shitty way to work and live, with low pay and no stake in the institution you labor for.
All I’m saying (and maybe it’s because I’m a sociologist), these systems are much more complex than either you or anti-hypocrisy implies. Maybe you’re talking about Research One universities? I can’t tell, but it doesn’t map onto my experience at my university, either as an adjunct or a tt professor.
Hi, Todd. This is a good point, and of course I don’t mean to simplify a complex reality. It’s hard to talk about your school without knowing what it is–though, assuming it’s in the US, its situation is so unique, I could probably make an extremely well-educated guess.
The overwhelming majority of cases are the reverse of your campus: most tenure-stream faculty on public campuses outside of the big R1s are unionized, and most contingent faculty are not.
And as you point out, even where contingent faculty are unionized, they have a long haul toward parity: even with a union, for most, it is, as you say, “a shitty way to work and live.”
The percentage of faculty serving as administrators is very high, and climbing rapidly. At many schools, especially community colleges in the southeast, practically the only tenure stream faculty are department chairs, deans, and program heads.
Take another look at your department, and count the folks who have been tenured for five years or more. What percentage of them are serving, have served, or in your estimation will soon serve
as a department chair, program head, institute director, associate dean, etc?
Since it’s not possible for all (admin, tenured, contingent) to work in “solidarity,” doesn’t it make at least as much sense for you and other well-positioned tenured folks who have found success turning exploitation of adjuncts into a lucrative multimedia enterprise to give a bit back to these masses of by taking that exigent, critical turn…by advancing your material dialectic…by continuing your work in the most meaningful way–I mean–by developing your emacipatory narrative, its ethic–by materializing your call for “solidarity!” in the Real world of academia?
I write on behalf of many abject adjuncts when I appeal to you and those like you to consider spending your well-earned capital by organizing tenured folks like yourself, who are indeed people with power and privilege in universities (”feminizing” yourselves doesn’t cancel your privilege or change this fact–only conveniently cloaks it), to strike on behalf of contingents–or even in actual real-time “solidarity” with contingents. (More effective than flatly repeating, or benevolently-paternalistically advising contingents “to unionize” I think.)
As the many pathetic portraits of uber-exploited adjunct workers in your text and on this blog illustrate quite well, contingents in their abject state do not have reasonable time or place or monies to unionize successfully. Surely you know this–you’ve yourself pointed it out for us! On the other hand, you and the others who have predicated your academic success on contingent-woe now HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE REAL SOCIAL CHANGE.
Yet, in the end, and once again, those with power declare from their place of power that it’s the most exploited who are responsible for social change.
(I’m sure I’ll once again be judged as “naive” and “hostile”…one gets used to that when one isn’t a member of the tenured stratum…oh the paradox!)
I’m not convinced a manifesto (another well-meaning descriptive grammar of labor in the university) makes anything meaningful happen–excepting of course for those who profit from these critiques.
An old and surely naive speculative question…what is the real-world value of eloquently parsing these problems in the thick of a high capitalism which is very much here to stay and revving faster and faster by the moment…what is the value of publicizing the most extreme examples of exploitation? Why should I be grateful? Why should I take even more time out of my abject life to listen to white tenured people represent ill-fitting representations of myself to me…spend time listening to them yammer on about the big bad administration?
All I’m truly learning from your observations is that some tenured people feel adjunct people’s pain–now, how about assuaging it in the real instead of fetishizing our (sometimes imagined) wounds?
And yet…my context(a full-time untenured lecturer) will always precede me (who I am as a thinker-writer and why I’ve chosen to live as I live) and so I’m doomed to be read foremost as naive, hostile….sigh.
I challenge you and your tenured readers to imagine these comments are at least somewhat worthy of response–if you must, imagine I am tenured and spirited rather than hostile and, instead of naive, communicating a historically relevant concern–this concern: we should be wary when we witness any “forms of resistance” being institutionalized (resistance to the workings fo the university institutionalized as a disciplinary field in the university, for instance)–knowing this always works on behalf of the status quo. When Ernesto LaClau wrote it, no one dismissed him as naive… )
I apologize for the lack of editing time!
Hi, AMV. Your resentment of the tenured is understandable, but your ideas are a bit off the mark in almost every respect. You make a whole bunch of, as you say, “hostile” remarks based on what you call “naive,” or simply erroneous assumptions. I’m particularly puzzled at the hostility you seem to reserve for those who’ve worked hardest in the ways you’d like them to.
For one thing, you hint that running this blog is a “lucrative multimedia enterprise.” You gotta be kidding.
Even if I ran ten ads on every page of the site, and I do not run any, the site would continue to lose money. I support it from my startup grant and when that runs out, I’ll pay the bills–for equipment, storage media, and non-employer web hosting–from occasional modest honoraria for speaking and writing.
Nobody who is writing, speaking, or blogging about academic labor is, to my knowledge, generating an income stream from it.
As for your idea that the tenured “have the power” to make real social change, this would be nice, I agree.
For the tenured to make the kind of change both of us would like to see, they have to act in groups like senates, unions, and AAUP chapters. Historically, however, those local clusters, where largely controlled by the minority of tenurable faculty, have in the overwhelming majority of cases not troubled to understand the issues of the contingent majority, or act in solidarity when those problems are known.
There are reasons for that failure–the direct power of administrations, the cultural engineering of the tenured by administrations, the fact that the tenure stream is increasingly a training ground/candidate pool for administrations, the fact that the tenure stream as a group is a distinct minority of faculty labor power, etc. Often enough people generalize from their own experience: “If I did it, anyone can; the system must be fair; those ‘others’ must like it that way or not have what it takes,” etc.
But reasons aside, AMV, that leaves the contingent faculty right where you feel yourself to be: angry, overworked, exploited, feeling helpless, wanting those who are complicit in your exploitation to fix it for you. But it also leaves you in the overwhelming majority and possessed of the same power that any workforce has: the power to organize, to speak collectively, to collectively bargain your wages and working conditions.
The question isn’t whether I’m a bad person, or whether all tenure-stream faculty and all of the thousands of faculty senates and union locals that they control are also hypocritical, selfish, and bad.
The question, AMV, is what are you and those with the actual power to change things gonna do?
You are right that bitching to me isn’t going to make much difference.
Spend the time you spend writing to me consulting with union organizers and making office visits to your colleagues as an organizer. You can make change a lot faster than you think.
And where the contingent have organized–or created caucuses in faculty senates/union locals–they have had success in raising the awareness of the tenured (by, yes, writing and speaking and generating knowledge about the realities on the campus), and winning their support. Powerful unions have historically sometimes won even the support of administrations: when you are actively trying to make the change you’d like others to make for you, you have at least the chance to win them to your side.
Listen–here’s what I suggest. Join the listserv at ADJ-L, where there are a bunch of top organizers and experienced faculty serving contingently. See what they have to say about the remarks you’ve made here before you continue this conversation.
Solidarity, M
Thanks for your reply. I appreciate your time and these comments. AMV
Just to back up Marc a bit, I joined UUP, SUNY’s faculty-professional union, back in the late ’90s when I landed a tenure-track job here–and right on the heels of the adjunct-led takeover of CUNY’s union. In response, the UUP leadership did such a brilliant job of rhetorical and tactical maneuvering to consolidate their position while incorporating some of the pro-adjunct agenda that I concluded it would be a better use of my time not to try to unseat them but to focus on my chapter and hopefully have us set an example for and pressure the state-wide leadership. We’ve had an adjunct as chapter president for several terms now and several other adjuncts in other leadership positions since I’ve been there. We’ve put adjunct issues front and center with the local administration, with some successes and some failures.
Now that the state-wide president has stepped down and moved on to the National Labor College, there might be an opportunity for adjuncts in UUP to make a bigger difference. Demographics and time are on their side: most of the delegates are older–hence close to retirement–so it’s as easy as pie to get involved at both local and state-wide levels now and will get easier over time.
Imagine if UUP had not only been lobbying for the restoration of full-time lines, but negotiating for them. Imagine if they had really pushed SUNY to institutionalize longer-term contracts and better per course rates for adjuncts, better professional development opportunities, and so on. With adjuncts in charge, this could have already been happening. Watch UUP the next few years to see if it starts to….
At the risk of turning this into a post of my own, I’ll note too that tenured faculty in departments can make a big difference. In my department, we’ve made it a priority to offer seniority benefits to or long-term adjuncts, convert many of our younger adjuncts into tenure-track positions (although sometimes the national searches we had to do lead to them getting beaten out by external candidates), and generally integrate those to want to be involved into departmental decision-making. Leadership at the local level can matter.
And still, the FT-PT ratio in the department has declined fairly precipitously in my ten years here. We have been relying more and more on adjuncts and TAs at the intro level, even though we have made around 20 FT TT hires in the past decade (thanks mostly to retirements and turnover, although we have snagged a couple of new lines). There’s no substitute for systemic change.
Several comments on the above:
Concerning SUNY’s UUP: Inspired by the posting of the Constructivist, I went to the UUP website and found that that union is proud of increasing its membership from 20,000 to 35,000 or so in the past decade of the outgoing president — for heaven’s sakes, think about it for a minute. The more part-time adjuncts, the more UUP members!
No wonder the Constructivist couldn’t get that union’s leadership to change. As long as the budget for the faculty continues to rise in SUNY (if only by inflation), that union will continue to get 1% of salary as agency fees even from the lowest paid adjunct. So, UUP’s leadership only cares about the state’s mandatory agency fee enabling legislation (which I recall was discussed on NPR a few years back) requiring ratification every two years in NYS’s legislature.
But I still note, as I did in the CHE blog of this topic by MB, and as AMV also notes above, that MB offers us the fruit of his reflections (and these reflections have likely been used as publications to achieve tenure and promotion, thus indeed offering a “living”) yet we do not hear of the kind of “in the trenches” work by him (or by his AAUP which silenced the NYS adjuncts on that listserv) in any way rivaling that of the Constructivist.
Sitting back, drawing the life-long academic paycheck, enjoying the perks of tenuredom, while telling the contingent to “do it yourself”, well, that’s what led me to my moniker: “Anti-hypocrisy advocate.”
It ain’t an either/or; it rarely is. It’s a both/and. The “trenches” work of the tenured must be there to put the chinks in the wall in order to strengthen the blows of the organizing contingent faculty.
So, dear tenured MB (and all of the tenured in academe), I have two parting adages:
In the academic “panem et circenses”: “Nos morituri salutamos te” — “We (the tenured) who are about to die, salute you (untenured worker)”
AND
“Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
# Anti-hypocrisy advocate
It’s worse than you say at UUP, AHA. 1% of high salaries counts for a lot more than 1% of lower-than-living wages, which means the interests of the best-paid people in the medical schools and university centers will always have to be taken care of in UUP–until the adjuncts realize the strength of numbers and the revolution happens. But that’s where you’re most precisely wrong about Marc, and where his advice is completely on target. By your own analysis, should the adjuncts in SUNY wait on UUP leadership to advance their causes or should they become the leadership? I take his DIY in a punk rock sense–it’s going to take that kind of attitude to take over. Put those agency fees to good use, I say.
Oh, and fuck you, by the way, for trying to set me up as the angel in your attempt to demonize Marc. Forgive the lack of civility there, but to go from your sensible both/and point to the accusation that he’s done nothing but theorize not only sets up a false dichotomy but only reveals your ignorance about his career.
So right now I can’t tell whether you’re just another anti-union internet point-scorer or just someone who’d rather complain than act. How does it feel to be on the other side of an unfounded accusation?
No problem; Constructivists of the world, rage on. My (and I believe, AMV’s implicit) request to discuss the kinds of things the tenured can and should do to change the system (which, it is NOT in their immediate self-interest to do, BTW) is an important point….
Also, who exactly is the subject of my sentence below (which elicited the “f___ you” from the Constructivist):
Oops! I guess somebody missed that basic grammar point, eh? and just assumed that it was an attack on MB when it was meant for ALL of the tenured faculty in this nation who can never do enough to make up for the fact that their positions depend on the positions of the contingent faculty for their very existence — and not just at universities but at colleges, too, where release time for this and that mean that often half of the full-time faculty don’t teach those 4 and 5 course per semester loads.
As for UUP, AAUP: just more of the alphabet soup of academe, not far apart in letters or in actions. That shutdown of the NYS AAUP adjuncts’ voices on a listserv doesn’t sound much different from the UUP the Constructivist describes.
The contingent are trained to turn on each other in order to have the approval of the great white tenured — for survival. So, let’s see, while swimming with the sharks, the guppies are to band together to attack the sharks and expect no revolution from within the ranks of the sharks.
Come to think of it, these exchanges have indeed proven MB correct: The tenured (and the tenure-tracked, apparently) will always tell the contingent that “it is not in their stars but in [them]selves that they are underlings.”
Julius Caesar fell — not from the uprising of the masses but from an internal coup.
“Et tu, Brute?”
ADDENDUM: The missing quote (which didn’t show up, apparently because I had used arrows to set it off):
Sitting back, drawing the life-long academic paycheck, enjoying the perks of tenuredom, while telling the contingent to “do it yourself”, well, that’s what led me to my moniker: “Anti-hypocrisy advocate.”
Continued analysis of that quote: The “subject” of those “-ing” actions? Why, an English professor could not rule out “the writer of that very sentence”!
But then again, as noted in my posting above, the intent was very obviously to address/accuse all of the tenured (and tenure-tracked) — collective responsibility, as it were.
“If the shoe fits, wear it.”
P.S. As for my own union credentials, the first union I was a member of was a TA-union and in the 70’s at that, so my collective activism goes way, way back and has been in no way limited to writing and picketing (but I’ve done that, too).
I won’t try to explain my use of second person to you, AHA! My f-bomb was prompted by your “yet we do not hear of the kind of ‘in the trenches’ work by him (or by his AAUP which silenced the NYS adjuncts on that listserv) in any way rivaling that of the Constructivist.”
Here’s a suggestion: why don’t you start your own blog and explain/promote the kinds of activism tenured faculty should be engaging in? You certainly sound like you have the experience to wax eloquent on the dos and don’ts.
Funny, how the silencing of the NY contingent faculty on that AAUP listserv remains the elephant in the room, and how elsewhere on this blog we learn that this thread will be likely be silenced.
In the context of discussion named “How the University Works,” those of us who argue that the struggle for equity cannot be simply a “DIY” to the lowest on the totem pole are told that they do not belong in this “space”, that they will be suppressed as “trolls”, that they should go to or form another blog.
It’s no wonder that administrators are drawn from the ranks of the tenured/tenure-tracked. They appear to hone all the skills of suppression and censorship deemed necessary for the job.
The Germans have an expression for this…Die Radfahrer Klingel: nach oben gucken und nach unten drucken (The bicycle bell: look up and press down).
The great union-organizing film “The Salt of the Earth” contains that wonderful moment where Esperanza tell her husband that she doesn’t want to have anyone beneath her to oppress.
Indeed….
Dude, come on over to my place if you don’t feel welcome here. I have a fainting couch all set up for you. Seriously, I’ll give you a guest post and all if you have something serious to contribute.
I’d love to see you answer the following questions. Where in anything Marc or I have written is it stated or implied that the tenured should just sit back and let the nontenurable do all the work? Have either of us ever rejected your key claim: embrace the both/and? So what is driving your rhetorical fireworks?
Look, if your testimony is to be believed, you’ve been in the academic labor movement for almost my entire life, so I’m sure you have lots to wisdom to share. But you’re coming off as an embittered crank. If you think you can do a better job than Cary Nelson running AAUP or write a better book on academic labor than Marc Bousquet, by all means get to it. I don’t see what’s gained by accusing those few tenured faculty committed to changing the system of bad faith without offering your own vision of what good faith action would look like.
I’m done here. Hope to see you at CitizenSE, AHA. Prove to me you’re not a troll and I’ll give you a platform.
Isn’t it always the way–when the nerves are hit, when the most salient points are made, albeit in raw polemic, someone eventually tries to shut down the conversation by shooing the most potent critics away, in an attempt to stifle dissenting opinion. So sorry we’re not polite enough to partake in this conversation, sirs.
I hope for a day when the difficult conversations can be had, even if now and again they aren’t as polite (elitist) as some (usually tenured white men) might want them to be–maybe this blog can forge new ground by assuming from the get go that these are difficult conversations–difficult discourse is often a bit randy or insulting. (Has anyone taught rhetorical analysis out there?) So what? (Or is this yet another instance of hypocrisy–protecting dominant conventions–the constraint…rude folks, watch those manners or you’ll be asked to go discuss elsewhere!) Yikes.
Yes, indeed, I have been in the academic labor movement most of the Constructivist’s life, apparently; proving myself on his “fainting couch” isn’t what I live for.
Nor is it the point. I’m not the only person to have asked for “specifics” on this blog thread, but I didn’t show the expected humility of a contingent laborer, did I? That was my sin.
And as for the questions: I am not very familiar with the Constructivist’s work, but this blog’s host has consistently countered “both/and” arguments here with “DIY”….
Yes, I was even a delegate in the MLA in the 90’s and helped the organizing grad students to get a platform there. Now that the grad students are tenure-stream professors I just assumed that they would have realized that “looking up” (blaming administration almost exclusively) and “looking down” (telling the contingent to organize themselves) isn’t the full academic labor movement picture. They only got where they did in MLA _because_ of those more established in the profession who supported them - against the establishment - to give them their voice within the structure. “Both/and” in action.
Further, yes, indeed, if Cary Nelson needs to shut down listservs in order to “run” the AAUP, there are many who could do a better job of wearing the mantle passed down by John Dewey. If “academic freedom” is to be purchased at the price of free speech by academics it is no freedom at all.
“I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places….”
Anti-hypocrisy: I am absolutely with you. Thanks for being the sole validating voice in this –for really hearing me. You don’t come close to coming across as a crank, by the way–rather, yours is the authentic, uplifting and ethical voice here. So much easier to declare one a troll from the university on the hill than to actually do the critical work which so many contingents need. If it’s not obvious by now that these voices of dissent won’t be silenced by a few tenured white men (by attempting to redirect you? good lord…), it will be someday. Thanks for your wisdom! AMV
For AMV:
The feeling is most definitely mutual.
- AHA
Even if AMV and AHA are the same person’s sock puppets, my invitation stands. If y’all want to think this has everything to do with your self-proclaimed status and nothing to do with general Blogoramaville etiquette, go right ahead! The only thing this conversation proves is how hard it is for me to avoid trying to get the last word in. But don’t let me interrupt your mutual admiration society, assuming there really are two of you!
Got my third post out of this exchange. Care to answer the million dollar question?
As for mutual admiration societies, this link is of interest:
http://citizense.blogspot.com/2008/02/on-funding-public-higher-education-part.html#c4242053699785775582
And it has the added bonus of proving both my and AMV’s points about the knee-jerk reaction to contemplate suppression of voices whenever the content is uncomfortable.
While the hint at schizophrenia is interesting (How could TWO people agree on those issues?), I assure you that AMV and AHA are different people. (BTW Where did I “self-proclaim” my “status”?)
As for the invitation to blog, well, reviewing books isn’t where I’m putting my energy these days. (That was kind-of my point from the beginning.)
Now, the Million-Dollar Question (a very good one, indeed) comes a bit late for the real UUP, though, doesn’t it? But it’s a good start to inspire the next negotiations a few years from now in SUNY. (Of course, by then there might be a different governor and all in NYS, so it would have been nice for this to have been “on the table” earlier in that 35,000 member union. Well, that’s just “blood under the bridge, blood under the bridge.” - Edward Albee)
You point out that the real UUP is a faculty AND professionals union. Very interesting point. Important for organizing the bargaining unit around the Million-Dollar Question are the following: What are the proportions of 1)tenured/tenure-track faculty, 2) contingent faculty, and 3) tenured/tenure-track professionals, and 4) contingent professionals? And how will the professionals come to realize that they have a stake in the contingent faculty’s fate?
And forget not the alumni and students — administrators HATE it when you work with student governments and alumni groups because they fear the loss of control. So serve as the faculty advisor to the student senate and educate its president. Finding ways to meet a trustee or three helps, too.
As tenured/tenure-track faculty, organize your confreres at each institution to insist on that 75/25 ratio in your own departments, fighting deans and provosts all the way to the media. Each faculty member who writes a grant for release time for participants juggles the external funding request to get a full-timer on board so that at least a living wage is paid (and if possible, the start-up funds for a new tenure-track line to support the grant’s continued work), etc., etc., etc.
The theory and the action, hand in hand — that has my blessing (so to speak).
“Amen. All is forgiven. Go and sin no more.”
Post-scriptum:
A quick entry on why a Million-Dollar Question bargaining unit survey is the last step in organizing for systemic change….
It’s the old theorist v. experimentalist dichotomy in the sciences. The theorist is often way out there and the experimentalist is trying to say, “that can’t work” or “that can’t be tested” or “we have to talk.” The best theorists are thus also experimentalists.
So, too, with systemic change of the university: the best theorist must also be an experimentalist. Nothing replaces the difficult conversations, the one-on-ones, the cross-constituent discussions. And the best theorist is the one who tries to “experience” all the constituencies from _their_ points of view in order best to understand them and transform them to a different space.
In other words, the best theorist-experimentalist is one who can grasp the whole yet be mindful of all the parts, who can see how each part is often driven by self-interest, and who has the creativity and vision to turn that self-interest on its head (yes, yes, dialecticians) and reshape it so that each constituent/cy sees the value of a systemic change, the value of the trade-offs that would be required.
Ergo, daily work in the trenches on the Million-Dollar Question lays the groundwork for a survey whose results are given to a chief negotiator. In fact, the daily work in the trenches is what must shape the questions as well as the answers it hopes to provoke.
For example, the theorist-experimentalist must be able to imagine that it is in the best interest of the administrator and the professional for the faculty to work in the German model of academic freedom (which gives the students the academic freedom to learn, as well, pace ABOR).
It’s both/and…never either/or.
“Peace and farewell….”
“the adjunct-led takeover of CUNY’s union”
One tiny quibble with The Constructivist: the news was much better than that encapsulated in his quote. The 2000 “takeover” of the Professional Staff Congress was led by *all* sectors of the union’s membership, including full-timers, contingents, and professional staff. It was a marvelous upwelling, deeply democratic and full of solidarity across ranks and titles. CUNY really is the locus for a fascinating test, a university-wide union for *all* the professional staff.
The reason for my quibble is the clear memory of the older, failed leadership’s election tactics. Those tactics including appealing to some full-timers’ fears that the union would, somehow be “taken over” by adjuncts, to the detriment of full-timers. Of course, precisely the opposite phenomenon had been going on for more than two decades: a corrupt union that positively sought to keep significant numbers of people simultaneously in the bargaining unit and *off* the membership rolls. The old “leadership” had succeeded in reducing the union’s membership to, I think, a little over 6000 from a bargaining unit of 20,000. Naturally, along the way, they demonized their opposition within the union as a bunch of impractical idealists and, heavens, *communists*, while simultaneously donning the mantle of practical business unionism.
CUNY’s management could *smell* that corrupt tactic from miles away, knew its meaning, and still managed to negotiate full-timers’ salaries that always lost ground to inflation over two decades. CUNY’s management reduced the value of full-timers’ salaries by a whopping third over the course of two decades of a corrupt leadership that tried, and failed, to bargain well on behalf of a small and diminishing coterie of full-timers. Practical business unionism, indeed. And I’ve got title to a bridge for sale here in Brooklyn, too.
Solidarity,
Walter Dufresne
adjunct assistant professor
NYC College of Technology / CUNY