Students from Evergreen State College serenaded legislators on March 4, the national "Day of Action to Defend Public Education," with their version of Amazing Grace: "I once could eat, but now I find, I can't afford the food," they sang, before politely filing out of the legislative chambers at the direction of security.

In New York state, parents, students, educators, and community and school board members held 18 press conferences and turned out to tell lawmakers they must reject Gov. Paterson's proposed $1.4 billion cut to public education funding. Students, with labor's participation, held rallies across New York City at City University of New York campuses, and at State University of New York campuses throughout the state. (More coverage of New York events is on the New York State United Teachers Web site.)

In Urbana-Champaign, Ill., more than 300 members of the University of Illinois UC United Coalition, including students, workers and faculty, staged a march and rally on campus, calling for an accessible, diverse and democratic UI at Urbana-Champaign as part of the March 4 National Day of Action. Chicago students and labor groups sponsored a panel discussion and rally, and then set up a soup kitchen to serve those hurting from job and resource cutbacks. AFT Graduate Employees Organization locals participated in both sets of events.

In Michigan, education supporters rallied at Wayne State University and in Lansing. Both gatherings featured demands for reversals of layoffs and full investment in education, K-12 thru higher education.

Organizers estimate that students, education workers and parents held actions in 30 states. In many, the focus was on higher education budget cuts, but public frustration is building over K-12 funding cuts as well, as the flow of stimulus dollars generated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act subsides.

In California, the epicenter of a student protest movement that began in September, the state reached critical mass on March 4, with hundreds of actions on college campuses and school districts. There, the public is showing resistance to the notion that decimating public education and other services is a given in a time of recession.

Passions ran high outside University of California central administration headquarters in Oakland, Calif., before 150 demonstrators were arrested for trying to shut down the freeway. Students at UC Santa Cruz so successfully blocked the entrances to the campus at the start of the day that the administrators posted a notice at 7 a.m., telling students and employees to stay away.

Fifteen students were arrested at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, one of them, the staff representative for the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association. An eyewitness account of the arrests is posted on the MGAA Website. The students were issued citations, but the American Civil Liberties Union is exploring whether free speech and free assembly rights were violated. [Barbara McKenna, Carrie Wadman, Paul Sickel, UW-Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association, UI Graduate Employees' Organization/photo by Russ Curtis]

The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) just released its annual survey of faculty salaries, and the data they present gives the impression of a boat taking on water after striking an iceberg: almost one-third of surveyed faculty members saw their salaries decline by an average of 3%, while 21% saw no change in their salaries. The survey also shows that only 8% of administrators took a pay cut, but those who did saw their salaries decline by an average of 6%.

The stagnation and decline in faculty salaries is yet another symptom of the on-going disinvestment in public higher education, exacerbated by the strain that the Great Recession is putting on state budgets. As John Curtis of the AAUP points out in the Chronicle of Higher Education's write-up, even with the glimmer of an economic recovery on the horizon, a recovery for higher education is likely to lag behind other indicators, and even then faculty salaries could run up against the shoals of state budget politics. Says Mr. Curtis, "I do think we're at a pretty critical juncture at looking at higher education as a public good and as a resource that contributes something to society. Unfortunately, a lot of governors and legislators are looking at higher education as only an expense."

The CUPA-HR data is likely only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the on-going woes. Just as only a fraction of an iceberg is visible above the water line, the CUPA-HR survey seems to provide only a partial picture of the state of the American collegiate faculty. From the information provided in their press release, the CUPA-HR survey seems to under-represent faculty at community colleges. It also provides salary data for five different categories of faculty: full, associate, assistant, newly hired assistant, and "instructor." The "instructor" category appears to only capture full-time, non-tenure track faculty, omitting the swelling ranks of part-time faculty. The survey summary also does not seem to examine the loss of faculty jobs - disappearing tenure-line positions, faculty furlough days, lay-offs and other data indicative of a labor force that continues to rely more and more on contingent workers.

Even if the data understates the true magnitude of the problem, the trends are unmistakable. A persistent decline in public investments for higher education instruction is having a deleterious impact on our nation's ability to provide a quality college education precisely at the moment when we are calling upon our national system of higher education to help spark economic growth. Policy makers would do well to heed these trends as they seek to integrate higher education into a plan for economic recovery.

 

Community college teacher Jim Miller (right) and others set out on the 260-mile march to Sacramento on March 5. David Bacon photo

Following in the steps of Cesar Chavez, educators and other labor activists are trekking 260 miles through California's Central Valley to raise support and public consciousness about California's perilous future. The March for California's Future begins today with a rally in Los Angeles and a launch from Bakersfield. Forty-seven days from now, the walkers will arrive in Sacramento.

The core group includes four teachers and a community college faculty member who belong to the California Federation of Teachers and a probation officer and firefighter. Sponsored by the CFT, AFSCME and a coalition of labor, education and faith groups, the march has three goals:

• To reclaim the promise of quality public education and services;
• To rebuild state government so it works for everyone;
• To restore fair and equitable taxes to invest in California's future.

Picking up where yesterday's Day of Action to Defend Public Education left off, the marchers will link with other supporters all along the way-- hundreds of firefighters, educators, nurses, in-home-care workers, students and police officers. They will help register voters, hold teach-ins and town hall meetings, and educate more of the public and legislators about how Californians can reclaim prosperity.

Despite the economic downturn and political headwinds, advocates for high quality higher education in California are pressing forward with the FACE legislative campaign. Legislators introduced two bills into the state Assembly: ACR 138 would establish equitable pay and benefits for contingent faculty as well as increase the percentage of full-time tenure-track faculty members at California's community colleges, while AB 1807 would provide important seniority rights to contingent faculty at the state's community colleges.

The tenacity with which California's faculty members and legislators are pursuing legislative remedies to the academic staffing crisis underscores how important higher education is to the state's future economic development, and more importantly, how vital a strong faculty corps is to providing those services. Initiatives like these are necessary to not only secure justice for contingent faculty members and bolster the full-time faculty, but to serve as a counterbalance to a tendency to balance budgets on the back of higher education.

You can find links to the California legislation and bills introduced in other states on our FACE Legislation page.

The St. Francis College Adjunct Faculty Union (NYSUT/AFT/NEA/AFL-CIO) won a decisive victory on Monday, February 22 when adjunct faculty voted by a margin of more than two to one for union representation. The final vote count was 96 to 47.

"A union at St. Francis will give adjunct faculty the opportunity to speak to the administration with one collective voice about issues which we deem important" stated Michael Fontana, adjunct professor, department of fine arts "This ability to voice our concerns is something which is desperately needed at St. Francis and just as vital as our desire for parity with our full-time colleagues. We are denied access to health care, regular pay increases, and a fair approach to pay compensation based on experience and time in service to the college and we need a union to right these wrongs."

Part-time faculty members felt that the school's administration had been unresponsive to their repeated concerns about the low wages, infrequent paychecks, lack of access to health insurance, and other benefits that their full-time colleagues enjoy, including office and storage space, so they began a union organizing campaign. Cards were filed in early January.

The administration immediately voiced their opposition; first claiming that they were exempt from national labor law as a religious institution (a tactic they later dropped after pressure from union allies) and then running an aggressive anti-union campaign which included numerous letters, emails, and videos.

"I'm very disappointed that the administration chose to try to stop us from forming a union" said Nancy Kelly, an adjunct professor in the communication arts department. "I found their letters and other efforts insulting to both my integrity as an educator and my intelligence. They were not above using fear tactics and other unethical means to keep us from organizing. I am not surprised, but I am very gratified, that a great majority of the adjunct faculty saw through these tactics and voted yes for the union."

Their anti-union tactics continued right up through the vote count, challenging eleven voters' ballots for trivial reasons, artificially deflating the number of yes votes, disenfranchising their employees, and revealing their eagerness to hold onto their total power at any cost.

The organizing committee was successful nevertheless because of their commitment to reaching out to and speaking with every adjunct faculty member, as well as their persistent positive message that St. Francis is a great place to work and it will be even better with a union.

Adjunct faculty members are looking forward to negotiating a first collective bargaining agreement that will reflect the kinds of gains their peers at Marymount Manhattan College, Pace University, Fashion Institute of Technology, City University of New York, and so many other unionized colleges and universities around New York City have made.