The only way to correct injustice in pay and working conditions is for all faculty to work together to educate, change attitudes and conditions about the rights, duties, and role of adjunct faculty. I’ve been a member of the migrant part time faculty for 34 years at various institutions including Cabrillo College.
I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in community colleges and universities where I have worked. Although my father was a farmer and had part time workers, I also was influenced by my maternal grandfather, a Teamster and early CIO member as well. His cardinal rule was to never to allow anyone to take another man’s sweat by not paying a fair wage or having decent working conditions. I think his attitude affected me, especially after earning my political science degree in college.
My first non-farm job was working as a family support officer in the San Benito County District Attorney’s office. At age 23, I was elected president of the San Benito County Employees Association, a bargaining unit for 114 county workers who represented about 90 percent of the county workforce. I bought in a professional labor lawyer with the help of Herman Levy, SCU law professor and NLRB member in 1980. Immediately, a change came over contract negotiations and grievances. The county politicians and administration stopped being patronizing and began to be more respectful of county workers. The Welfare Department head actually started supplying his employees with calculators for their desks after years of requiring them to buy their own! Leaving county government and eventually working as an adjunct political science instructor, I witnessed and experienced of the same paternalistic and authoritarian behaviors in some colleges as in local government. On completing my doctorate in education and writing a dissertation on shared governance in community colleges, I was asked by my department head at University of San Francisco School of Education to teach a graduate course on community college administration. The primary textbook, The Community College by Cohen and Brawer had a comment on adjunct faculty, how they were treated little better than migrant farm workers. That phrase has stayed with me in the time I have served as CCFT Adjunct Chair and a HASS Division Council representative. I realized as a part time faculty member, complaining wasn’t enough. I needed to speak up and get involved, even when it wasn’t popular. The only way for conditions to change is to work for it, even if you are marginalized by some committed to the status quo.