Adjuncting / CARL LINDSKOOG
A Week Without Adjuncts
What would happen if all graduate students, adjuncts, and other “contingent workers” at CUNY decided to withhold their labor for a week? How would CUNY continue operating if these so-called “part-timers” took a week-long work holiday? With graduate students and adjuncts teaching more than half of the classes at CUNY, business as usual would be impossible. Although a work stoppage would no doubt receive stiff resistance from the university administration, especially if we were found in violation of the Taylor Law, this much would be clear: CUNY cannot function without us.
But why bring this up now? CUNY has long been reliant on graduate student and adjunct labor, so what’s new? The answer is that the historic events of this May Day, the international workers’ day, has provided a new context in which to understand our status and struggles as workers at CUNY. On May 1, when members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) shut down all 29 West Coast ports in a labor strike against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they took a historic step for labor. And when Iraqi dockworkers joined the strike this action became even more significant. This May Day action by American and Iraqi workers provided valuable inspiration and a tremendous example for all workers including CUNY graduate student and adjunct faculty. Their one day work stoppage was an acknowledgement that all the marches, protests, meetings, phone calls and other efforts to end the war have not worked. As Jack Heyman, an officer of the ILWU said in a recent interview, this was an action aimed at “raising the level of struggle from protest to resistance.”
The ILWU strike is not the only recent May Day labor action that can inspire us. In Spring 2006, as part of the massive resistance against proposed legislation that would have made it a felony to be undocumented, immigrant workers also carried out a historic May Day action. A Day Without Immigrants (also known as The Great American Boycott) took place on May 1st, 2006 and witnessed immigrants staying away from work, closing their shops, and skipping school to demonstrate a simple but frequently ignored truth: without immigrants this country cannot function.
So what do these May Day lessons have to offer CUNY graduate students and adjuncts? After all, we’re not in such a strategically important position as the dockworkers, nor are we in a position to have a nationwide movement like immigrants. Still, these two May Day actions can lend clarity to our situation at CUNY. Like the dockworkers and immigrants, we have presented our case and repeatedly protested the injustice of our situation. Will any amount of pleading with the Chancellor result in a fair contract for adjuncts? What will it take for CUNY to realize our value? We have been working without a contract for eight months now and we went without a contract for years before the last one was settled! Perhaps we need to take a lesson from the recent May Day actions and to consider exercising the only real power we have as workers. Perhaps it is time to move from protest to resistance in our struggle for equity and fair treatment at CUNY.
Comments | Leave a comment |
| JOE ADJUNCT says: | 2008-05-16 02:21:39 |
| "Although a work stoppage would no doubt receive stiff resistance from the university administration, especially if we were found in violation of the Taylor Law, this much would be clear: CUNY cannot function without us." -- big although there, though. | |
| Walter Dufresne says: | 2008-05-24 13:36:34 |
| If I've got my facts straight, NYS's Taylor Law demands one kind of penalty, by statute: striking workers lose that day's pay and -- as a fine -- one additional day of pay. It is common, though, for worried workers to fear that each day of a strike results in a loss of that day's pay and *two* additional days, common but wrong. Again, if I've got my facts straight, it's a misguided fear. For adjuncts and for graduate students, a one week strike would cost us one-fifteenth of a semester's pay for taking time off from work and an additional fifteenth in the form of a Taylor Law penalty. That sums to 2/15ths of a single semester's pay. For adjuncts and graduate students who teach *two* semesters per year, that works out to 6.66% less pay for the entire year. When I consider what inflation does to our wages each and every year, striking for a week every few years is positively cheap in comparison. | |
| Ken Ryesky says: | 2008-05-24 21:37:59 |
| For the record, I do not condone, and have no intention of participating in, any strike or other action in contravention of the Taylor Law. [The text of Section 210 of the Taylor Law can be found here: http://www.perb.state.ny.us/stat.asp#str ] Having stated this, it is certainly not a violation of the Taylor Law to engage in intellectual discussion or speculation as to what actions or inactions would or would not be a violation of the Taylor Law (or any other law), and what might be the consequences of such actions or inactions. With that in mind, WHAT IF.... One week, all of the Adjuncts were to report promptly to their classrooms, and then sit at the instructor's desk (and/or stand at the podium) and not speak a word, except, at the scheduled ending time for the class, to say "thank you ladies and gentlemen, the class is now dismissed!" It might not pack quite the punch of a full-blown labor stoppage such as the one embodied in Carl's ruminations, but, on the other hand, such an action (or, perhaps, an inaction) would ever so slightly increase CUNY's burden of proof required to invoke Section 210. Just speculating! | |
| Anna Spiro says: | 2008-05-25 09:22:46 |
| Until more adjuncts at CUNY are willing to become active -- say wear a button proclaiming their status and devotion to education, I doubt that enough people would participate in such an event to make it meaningful. First step, is recognition. Someone design an attractive adjunct logo -- print it on a hat, a canvas bag, a button e.g I""'m proud to be a CUNY adjunct." or something about " If you can read this, thank an Adjunct!" (whatever- that one is very bad. Recognition and bonding will lead to success whatever path is then followed - hopefully. Anna Spiro | |
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