I am reading a book. It's about education and unions - go figure. In the introduction, the author talks about some of the things that surprised him as he researched his subject. Here is one passage:

Although they viewed themselves as professionals, they were little more than hired hands. They were told how to teach, and the books they used and the size of their classes were considered none of their business.  . . . They were paid with a pinch of prestige and a jigger of pity; one salary comparison of the day placed their incomes below those of car washers, which made moonlighting and summer jobs unwritten requirements of the job.

Sound familiar? Who do you think this author is talking about?

Last Thursday, I accepted a full-time, tenure track position at Green River Community College. Since then, I have been struggling to find a way to express the things I'm feeling right now.

It's been twenty years since I landed my first job as a "part-time" English instructor, so this is a huge personal milestone for me. It's tempting to say that I have finally accomplished my goal, but that sounds too much like I've reached the end of my journey. My journey hasn't ended; I've simply merged onto another highway.

Well, I imagine if you are a FACE Talk reader, then you are interested in these issues and already know that Inside Higher Ed had an interview today with Frank Donoghue of Ohio University on his new book, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities. You probably also know that it (the interview that is, since no one has actually read the book yet) has stirred up quite a bit of conversation over at IHE (much of which has devolved into the "why do faculty get tenure when no one else does" discussion).

Donoghue has been working through this theme for some time. In 2004, he authored an article for AFT's first volume of American Academic entitled "The Uneasy Relationship between Business and the Humanities" (pdf) although he seems to have become decidedly more pessimistic about the future.

Two developments we have been watching up in Canada have the potential to be very good news, but with some caveats.

The McGill TAs are preparing to vote tomorrow on a possible contract that will end a nine-week strike according to Maclean's (via Inside Higher Ed).  The potential issue is that several TAs were fired from non-union jobs during the strike, and the union, AGSEM, is seeking compensation.  The university is hoping the union is willing to forgive and forget.

Meanwhile over in Ontario, there is movement on the bill to recognize the 12,500 contingent faculty members in that province.  And while some are hailing this development as evidence that Canada truly is a paradise, it appears that the Ontario government is just as prone to mischief when it comes to labor law as our own government.  Apparently, in modifying the labor code to recognize contingent faculty, the bill also curbs the rights of other employees - namely full-time faculty.  Nothing like pitting one group against another to provide cover for doing nothing at all.

OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union), the union that has been organizing contingent faculty and working for the change in the law, issued a press release expressing its dismay with the move.

"It is pretty outrageous that this government thinks that recognizing the Charter rights of one group of workers means that another group of workers must give something up," said OPSEU president Warren (Smokey) Thomas. "Charter rights are not some kind of benefit to be paid for, they are rights, pure and simple. They cannot and must not be treated like just another bargaining chip."

So there is more work to be done.  We will keep watching how each of these situations develop.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Margaret West's being told she would no longer be offered classes at the college where she has taught for twenty-one years. I should also mention that another adjunct faculty member, Brent Todd, was given the same message from the same dean at the same school and there is some indication that there might be others. Several people have responded to the post, both here and on other web sites, so I thought I'd give an update and respond to a couple of the responses. As you will see a good deal has happened since I last wrote about this.

Time to raise a pint to our British colleagues. In what’s being called an historic victory for contingent academic staff in the UK, the University and College Union has won a permanent contract for a researcher at the University of Aberdeen who had been employed on a succession of fixed-term contracts for nine years.

A labor tribunal ruled that Dr. Andrew Ball, a research fellow in the department of Zoology, must be recognized as a permanent employee under the UK’s Fixed Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favorable Treatment) Regulations 2002. Under that legislation, employees who have had their contract renewed or who are on at least their second contract and have four years service must be offered a permanent position, unless the employer can justify the need for a contract renewal.

After this, I imagine there are more than a few college administrators looking at the years of service of the adjunct faculty members at their college or university and who they just hired or are about to hire in tenure-track positions. Oh, and I imagine there are more than a few long-term contingent faculty members thinking about their careers and recent hires in their departments as they research local law firms.

If you recall, FACE Talk contributor and part-time faculty activist Phil Jack worked and reported on AFT Washington's efforts to promote FACE in the Evergreen State. If you also recall, Phil reported that while they did not achieve their ultimate goal this legislative session, they did get a small amount of money for converting part-time positions into full-time positions (which some suggested could only hurt part-time faculty).

Well, here is some news. Phil, who has been a part-time faculty member at Green River Community College for quite a few years, had applied for a full-time position in the English department. He was one of two finalists, but in the end did not get the job. Lo and behold, along comes one of the new positions funded by those conversion funds and Green River decides to use it in the English department. Guess who just got a tenure-track position?

So rarely do we see the concrete results of efforts like the work that Phil has put into the FACE campaign, but no one deserves it more. Congrats to Phil.

My bad. Yesterday, I suggested that certain on-line adjunct faculty hiring companies were the surest sign we were now officially moving to a corporate, perma-temping model of higher ed. I think this article over at the Chronicle of Higher Ed (sorry, gotta pay the man for this one) suggests there are even clearer signs that we are heading there. The article "looks at three strategies that help for-profit colleges succeed financially and in some cases pedagogically-strategies that might reduce costs in traditional higher education." Number one innovative strategy? Pay adjunct faculty less!

Congrats to the part-time faculty at Montgomery College in Maryland who just got themselves a union by a vote of 365-105.  MC Adjuncts will be part of SEIU Local 500.