In the average university classroom
it is common for students to call their teacher “Professor,”
followed by the teacher’s last name. For the most part, we
as students assume that the person teaching us is a professor since
they are teaching at a university; when students look up information
on a teacher, they often see a “Dr.” written before
the teacher’s name. However, if it becomes known that a “professor”
is actually a lecturer, it is natural to assume that the lecturer
has not yet received his or her PhD yet, or that he or she is otherwise
unqualified to be a professor. Luckily for the students, this is
not the case. Lecturers for the most part, have their PhDs, have
taught for several years, meet the qualifications for the job, and
do the same amount of work as professors. Nevertheless, they are
denied the title of professor and the benefits that accompany it.
As a result of this lack of recognition, lecturers have had to seek
out a way to get their voices heard. Attempting to get the behemoth
administration of a university
to listen to the complaints of individual lecturers is daunting,
not to mention easy to ignore. Therefore, many lecturers have chosen
to join a labor union, so that collectively, their voices will be
heard loud and clear.
Joining a labor union is not unlike joining
a club on campus, in that membership is voluntary, and includes
two types of members, active and inactive. Just as clubs define
active members as those who have paid dues and take a proactive
attitude towards the events that the club holds, unions define them
as those who have paid fees, vote, and participate in discussions
of union issues. However, unlike clubs that concentrate on the extracurricular
activities of the student, these higher education labor unions focus
on the issues of the workplace for each educator. Theses organizations
represent the workers as a whole, and all who are in the unions
benefit from the gains accomplished by union workers, whether they
pay dues on not. Since, membership dues help pay for union workers
lobbying for legislature at both the state and national level, educating
the masses about current labor market issues, and the expenses to
run the union in general, it would be unfair if those who do not
pay dues to benefit from the services of the union. With the passage
of the Fair Share Bill, inactive members are forced to pay a fee
as a part of their employment. As the Higher
Education Employer-Employee Relations Act defines it, fair share
“requires employees in the bargaining unit, who are not members
of union, to pay a fee to the union as a condition of employment.
By law, the fee cannot exceed the dues amount.” Therefore,
unions that are recognized by universities and that represent a
body of workers, now receive backing from all of its members whether
active or inactive. As a result, unions are adequately able to fight
for the rights of their workers.
Labor unions go about defending workers’
rights in several different manners. One example is how the California
Federation of Teachers runs its organization. Each year, at
its convention, democratically elected representatives come to debate
the current issues. Also, the five major divisions of the union:
Early Childhood/K-12, Classified, Community College, Adult Education,
and University meet quarterly to discuss topics and develop policy
proposals to present to the members of the union. By doing this,
the CFT is able to show a solitary stance to the public and the
legislature. The discussion brings in all areas of education, and
enables the union to have clear goals for education from kindergarten
through college. Unions also hire lobbyists and stage public marches
to grab the attention of the legislature and the public in general.
Lobbyists negotiate with politicians to pass bills securing a better
work environment for its members, while marches are just public
displays used to grab media attention and bring awareness to specific
concerns. Media attention is key for unions wanting to pressure
the administration into action. Recently, a college in Wisconsin,
Waukesha County Technical College, hired an anti-union consulting
firm and laid off a full-time instructor who also happened to be
a chief negotiator for the faculty union. The Wisconsin Education
Association Council (WEAC) and the AFL-CIO researched and publicized
the firm’s anti-labor record and forced media
attention on the dismissal of the instructor, and thereby was
able to get him rehired. Another way of bringing public attention
to the plight of the workers is to strike. Unions have organized
and executed many strikes to wake up administration. If the administration
is unwilling to work with the faculty, the faculty sees that it
is only fair to withhold their work from the administration as well.
Strikes tend to be the last resort for unionists because of the
havoc it creates for people, such as students, who are not involved
in the dispute. Nonetheless, when pushed hard enough, the unions
will push back and do whatever it takes to ensure that things will
change.
Unionists have many issues they would like
to see improve, but in essence, the lecturers’ concerns can
be traced to one main point, the lack of tenure
positions. Tenure represents job security, and without it there
is no guarantee of a job the following year. Usually tenure is offered
after a probation period of three to seven years, during which the
work of the teacher in question is evaluated. The problem today,
is that university administrators are offering fewer tenure positions
to lecturers. Consequently, the lack of such positions results in
an estimated fifty percent of classes at universities being taught
by untenured staff. As the number of lecturers continue to rise,
the number of actual professors is dwindling down. Labor unions
are at odds with the businessmen of academia because the administrators
often cite cost-efficiency as the reason for the insufficient number
of tenure positions. The American
Federation of Teachers, a union representing over one million
educators, puts it this way:
Educational managers are concerned, necessarily,
with operational efficiency, but have little regard for academic
principles. Economics is at the root of this management challenge
to tenure but so, too, is the redistribution of power in the academy.
Without the protections against arbitrary dismissal which only
the tenure system affords, decision making will increasingly rest
with the managers. A "de-tenured" faculty, even one
with multi-year contracts, would have little say on questions
of academic plans, personnel decisions, or other policy matters.
The abolition of tenure might make universities more "cost-effective,"
as management would have it, but at what cost and to what effect?
The AFT argues that using economics as the principle
for deciding the welfare of teachers is unfounded and does not put
the quality of education first. Therefore, cutting costs by offering
less tenure positions results in poor effective
learning.
The affect of a “de-tenured” faculty
goes beyond having no job security for the lecturers. It leads into
the issue of shared governance. Shared governance is the idea that
educators and administrators share the decision-making responsibility
at the university. Having less tenured positions favors the administration
in terms of setting the agenda for the school because the high turnover
rate of lecturers, means they have little time to provide their
input on curriculum or policy. This
issue of shared governance, or the lack thereof, leads to the matter
of academic freedom. With less say on
matters that concern what is being taught, lecturers face the threat
of being fired for teaching new, radical ideas. In fact, the American
Association of University Professors was founded for this very reason.
Edward Ross, a professor at Stanford in 1900, lost his job at Stanford
University because the wife of Leland Stanford did not like his
views on immigrant labor and railroad monopolies. Another professor,
at John Hopkins, named Arthur Lovejoy, aware of Mr. Ross’
situation, realized that losing academic freedom would become a
serious detriment to education. Therefore in 1915, Lovejoy and Dewey
created AAUP
to defend the right of an educator to have academic freedom. A characteristic
of a top university is the amount of diversity their curriculum
contains. Instruction is made far more interesting when the professor
brings in a completely different view than expected. However, the
freedom to teach new and innovative material is threatened when
administrators can fire and hire according to their own agenda.
Education itself becomes contingent upon the perspectives of a few,
rather than educating to let the student figure things out for themselves.
At UCLA, half of the classes are taught by lecturers
for whom tenure will never be an option. In the long run, the cost
efficiency of having less tenured faculty may come to a head with
the lack of quality education. The issues that these lecturers face,
such as job security, shared governance, and academic freedom will
continue to evolve as long as the administration refuses to acknowledge
the need to appreciate educators. When all is said and done, labor
unions are fighting for respect for the educator. Teachers are needed
to produce intelligent citizens, but when their needs are not met,
and many are forced to leave the profession due to the lack of security,
the state of our universities hang in the balance. Labor unions
are doing what they can to make sure that the balance tips towards
better, rather than cheaper education.
For more information:
http://www.aft.org/higher_ed/downloadable/Shared_Gov.pdf
http://cft.org/councils/uc/index.html
http://www.ashankerinst.org/
http://www.aft.org/higher_ed/issues/tenure.html
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?ID=22136 |