The battleground of unionization at universities has now been extended.
Hearings on the right of New York University adjunct professors on other non-tenured faculty members to form a union, which will be conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, are set to begin on Monday.
Adjunct and other non-tenured faculty members at New York University filed a petition with the NLRB on March 20 to hold union elections.ÿAs members of Adjuncts Come Together-United Auto Workers, the adjuncts seek union representation.
If the NLRB certifies this move by the NYU adjuncts, the ACT-UAW will become the largest union strictly for non-tenure faculty at any higher education institution in the nation.
NYU has already made history as the first private university to recognize a union of graduate students, in addition to reachingÿa first-ever contract settlement between a private university and a graduate employee union.
Penn and Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania, the group that is seeking to unionize some graduate students on campus,ÿare currently awaiting the NLRB's decision on whether or not graduate students will have the right to hold union elections.ÿPreliminary hearings were concluded in downtown Philadelphia last month.
Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania co-spokesman Shane Duarte said he was pleased to hear about the new unionization hearings at NYU.
"The effort to unionize graduate employees at Penn is part of a larger effort to stop the exploitation of adjuncts, part-time instructors and graduate employees within the academy," Duarte said. "Graduate employees at Penn know that they might find themselves in the situation of their adjunct and part-time colleagues and so they applaud their colleagues' efforts."
"Adjuncts are one of the most exploited groups of workers at universities," GET-UP co-spokeswoman Joan Mazelis added. "Due to the transient nature of their employment, they have a difficult time organizing, and that makes the NYU situation all the more exciting."
ACT-UAW was formed in April 2000 after the election for a graduate student union took place at NYU. This came "not surprisingly after the victory of graduate students," ACT-UAW organizer Julie Kushner said.
"There was tremendous interest by adjuncts to organize," Kushner said. "They felt empowered by the demonstration of strength" of the graduate students.
According to Kushner, adjuncts constitute 70 percent of the faculty at NYU. Not only do a significant amount of adjuncts hold advanced degrees and teach heavy course loads, they also do not receive the basic benefits -- such as health insurance and pension plans -- afforded to their full-time counterparts.
"Unionization has become necessary because so many universities have been 'corporatized,' meaning that they are run by people with MBAs whose primary consideration is market share and the bottom line," NYU General Studies Adjunct Professor Kathleen Hull said in an e-mail statement.
"When a university treats its adjunct professors like workers to whom it owes nothing, not even a living wage, then those professionals will begin to respond in the best way workers in this country have always tried to improve their conditions: they form unions in order to bargain collectively," she added.
Through the ACT-UAW, the members aim to achieve improvements in pay and other benefits that usually supplement higher education -- including access to space in which professors can meet with their students.
"People believe it will impact the quality of education at NYU," Kushner said.
The participants in this new labor movement are saying, "our working conditions are our students' learning conditions," Hull said.
Kushner added that she believes the unionization battle will be an easier one for the adjunct professors than it was for graduate students because there is no question about their status as employees of the university.
Incoming Graduate and Professional Students Assembly Chairman Jeremy Korst said the events at NYU "will likely have some kind of impact here on our campus."
However, some Penn students view the adjuncts' attempts in a slightly different light.
"I think it's interesting," Graduate Student Association Council Chairman Darren Glass said. "It's part of this whole growing trend that groups like the UAW are trying to unionize campuses more and more."
"Penn is a very non-unionized campus, even among staff," Glass added. "Historically, it has not been a place where people feel a need to unionize."
