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AFA presently uses FTEs (full-time equivalent) hours to determine representation. According to our present information, this is fortunately illegal since unions as designated collective-bargaining units are required by federal law to represent their members -- not pieces of academic turf. And this is not just dues-paying members of AFA, but all instructors at SRJC regardless of union membership or teaching status.
The current configeration of AFA is
unrepresentative of the 216
full-time members of
AFA and 280 Adjuncts. As our
collective-bargaining agent, however, AFA is
wildly out of balance in its federal mandate
to democratically represent the
total number of instructors on campus: 326
full-time instructors, but more than 1,400
adjuncts. The first step is to contest this
at the state level. Anyone can at any time
bring this to the
attention of the State government agency
responsible for overseeing
collective-bargaining agreements, the Public
Employment Relations Board or PERB. This
is under administrative law jurisdiction and
therefore, does not require a gaggle of
high-priced lawyers.
It is up to
Adjuncts
whether or not they want to contest this and
consequently up to Adjuncts if AFA is
preserved at all. Any of us can
throw this into court for very little money.
In the event of this court challenge (and
given the response of many full-timers in the
past), it is likely that full-time faculty
will kick us out of the union. This course
of action, however, does nothing to
ameliorate the designated
collective-bargaining unit issue.
Many full-timers have ignored adjuncts
because they think they don't need them.
The
short-sightedness of this is Ecology 101 
, of
course,but
hierarchy dies hard. So, do we preserve a
union who is unresponsive to our interests?
Or have we really got nothing to lose? Is
our information even correct? Let's
check our facts and have an open debate.
Note: The editors volunteer this
website for
fundraising efforts and coordination in the
event of a legal challenge.
Related info
top of page
The Academic Senate debates
enfranchisement
of Adjuncts
Story pendng - sorry, but the Editor is
currently swamped. Don't know when it will
be done.
top of page
The World According to Everett
Traverso
Background info:
In a previous Academic
Senate
meeting Ron Root (our new budget man)
had congratulated the college on how much
they were able to do with so little. The
following meeting Michael Ballou expressed
the view that Ron was congratulating the
wrong people since the budget was being
balanced on the backs of the Adjuncts.
Everett's speech is in reaction to these
comments. Everett Traverso is
former President of the Academic Senate and
his opinions carry great weight.
(full transcript of speech delivered by
Everett Traverso, March
22, 2000 before the Academic Senate -bold
face emphasis is
editor's)
I appreciate Michael Ballou's comments today
and I really don't want to address them, but
I do want to address his comments earlier in
the last three meetings. And I want to
especially address the comments that any
advantages that SRJC full-time faculty has or
that the SRJC institution as a whole have
been achieved on the backs of the Adjunct
faculty. I must say that this upset me
greatly I think it is an extraordinary
oversimplification and I think that
oversimplifications are dangerous and
harmful.
With only five minutes - I could spread this
over four or five meetings and get more than
that, but I won't - with only five minutes I
can only be at the very briefest.
I agree. very much so. that some
Adjuncts faculty are treated grossly
unfairly....some. Those Adjunct faculty
who
are treated grossly unfairly are those who in
a nation-wide search would be hired as
full-time faculty members who have taught
here for a long time, but who because we do
not allocate enough money for full-time
faculty members continue in the position of
second-class faculty - I absolutely agree
that is a serious moral problem. How much we
can deal with that on the local level, I
really don't know, but it is a serious
problem.
What I considered the gross
oversimplification is to argue that all or
even most Adjunct faculty member fall into
that category. Some of them, certainly in
my department, frequently are what I would
call "apprentice faculty". That is they
are people who have the very minimal
education and usually no teaching experience.
And we take the risk of hiring them and
we cultivate them and we train them and we
work with them. It is simply not the
case that the majority fall into that first
class of being exploited.
Secondly, second
gross oversimplification I think, is to argue
that in all the injustices within this
institution, and there are many, that the
only injustice or the most important or most
grievous injustice, is that of Adjunct
faculty members. There are many injustices.
There are injustices to short-term, what we
call short-term, non-continuing classified,
who we hire and fire and hire and fire over
and over again. There are simply injustices
to classified in general who we don't hire
enough classified. There are injustices, I
would argue myself and I think very
reasonably and seriously on this, that if
there are any advantages that this college
and other colleges has gained from misusing
faculty that the full-time faculty are
misused. I teach fifteen units. The courses
I teach are exactly the same courses taught
at Sonoma State where people teach six units
and nine units. Many full-time faculty teach
not only fifteen units, more than that
because they have an extra burden dealing
with the unequal way we consider lab work.
Are they exploited? Yes, they are exploited.
There are many classes of employees
exploited here. We ought to be concerned
with all of them.
The third gross oversimplification, I think,
comes from whether or not we can do anything
about it. Mr. Root addressed that last time.
We are 44th in the nation in the amount of
money appropriated per student. Worse, we
are the third in the education institution
within this state....grossly, the third.
Moreover than that, we are what - one of four
states in the Union that require two-thirds
to get a bond issue passed. When you look at
what people in California have done to us in
terms of paying us, it just....
I just get so upset when somebody points a
finger and says, "you are immoral because
you're doing this." I just think, you know,
the issue is so much bigger than this. I
think the problem with this kind of
oversimplification is that it clouds our
vision about what we can do. What can we do?
I think there are some very clear things
that we can I think Michael Ludder has been
pushing us to do some very good things. We
can certainly treat the Adjunct Faculty as
equals. We can certainly increase the
communication with them. We can do all those
kinds of things that Michael has been talking
about. We have also said in this group here
that there are other things that will help us
understand the Adjunct Faculty members. We
also, asked, and I don't know where it is,
that we develop a long-range plan within this
college for hiring in general - hiring
classified. hiring full-time faculty, and we
make it a high priority that we shift our
funds into hiring more full-time faculty.
Remember we passed this last Spring. Those
are some of the things we can do. We can
also
do, which again guess what Michael is
talking about here, work at the state-wide
level. We need as a Senate to be more
involved at the state-wide level and we need
to be in the kinds of unions that are working
for people at the state level because there's
only so much we can do at the local level to
try to remedy these gross injustices that
happen to so many people here. So I don't
want to deny that some Adjunct faculty are
really seriously unfairly treated. But I
think the kind of generalizations that have
been made here are really unfair and cloud
the issue. Thank you.
Everett Traverso
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Full-timers oppose Adjunct
Representation on the
IPC
The Institutional Planning
Council or IPC has absolutely no Adjunct
representation whatsoever. The IPC is
important because it determines the future
direction of the College. It currently
consists of 4 Classified Staff, 5
Administrators, 2 Studentbody Officers and 6
Faculty Representatives.
To remedy
this
problem (and at the instigation of Adjunct
Instructor Michael Ballou), the IPC passed
the buck to the Academic Senate with
the recommendation that whatever is decided,
the Adjunct representatives (or
representative as according to Senate
President Brenda Collin's interpretation)
should come from the Faculty pool of six
slots. The issue finally came up for
discussion in the Academic Senate this past
Wednesday, Nov 3. Seven
people spoke - six Full-timers and one
Adjunct.
Adjunct Instructor Michael
Ludder(social sciences) spoke in favor
of
the proposal referring to Adjuncts'
great difficulty is getting their issues
heard. (The other Adjunct Instructor,
Kay Renz [english], said
nothing.)
Six
Full-timers spoke out against the
proposal. Ed Sikes (electronics) said
that he was against the inclusion of Adjuncts
because "[Adjuncts] are easily intimidated."
Everett Traverso
(philosophy) was
concerned that like a slippery slope, it
would open the door up to all the other
unrepresented groups on campus. Jack
Wegman (economics) did not like the
notion of a "designated seat" for Adjuncts
(even though that the IPC is only composed of
designated seats). Dianne Smith
(behavioral sciences) saw it as a complex
issue somehow tied to the AFA and therefore
should not be tinkered with. Craig Butcher, your AFA
President
and physical
education instructor, opposed the measure
because there are more than 300 Full-time
instructors, but only 100 or so positions on
district-wide committees and organizations.
Full-timers need those positions (or position
according to Brenda Collin's interpretation
of the motion) to fulfill their contractual
agreement. Finally, Kris Futrell
(humanities, former Adjunct and former
Adjunct representative to AFA) spoke out in
opposition because Adjuncts lack expertise
and what she referred to as a "big picture
mentality." Adjunct Michael Ballou was
overheard to mutter "I rest my
case...."
No vote was taken and
discussion will be reopened for the next
Academic Senate Meeting, Wed. 3:15, Nov
17)
UPDATE!
Brenda Collins has since appointed an
Adjunct to the IPC. This is a temporary
appointment for Spring Semester only.
top of page
FYI - Adjuncts must be paid for the
time they spend serving on Campus-wide (known
as "district-wide" in the parlance of the
contract) activities. That would include
committees in the Academic Senate, or any
other governing body on campus. Currently,
of the 140 some odd committee positions on
campus, only three are filled by Adjuncts -
Jill Kelly-Moore
(humanities) heads the
two-member Multicultural Events Committee,
Paricia Heeb (behavioral sciences) is on the
Academic Senate Equivalency Committee and
Linda Weiss (art) serves on
District
Tenure Review.
Michael Ludder (social sciences)
and Kay Renz
(english) on the Academic
Senate should be getting some money as well.
This requirement can be located in
the Contract Revisions portion, Article 16.10
D and 16.10 E. There is $30,000 already
allocated and unspent to cover this clause of
the contract and payment is supposed to
occur retroactively.
If the
misinformation
presented by the Academic Senate or Craig
Butcher of AFA during the Senates's last
debate on Adjunct representation on the IPC
(read story above) is any example, we
shouldn't
expect our governing organizations to tell
Adjuncts what they are entitled to. Though
AFA included this important piece of
information in a bulletin earlier this
semester, Brenda Collins, President of the
Academic Senate and gatekeeper for committee
appointments was unaware of it. That it
is
not widespread knowledge underscores the need
for Adjunct voices and Adjunct sources of
news. Support your Adjunct organizations on
campus!!
