Academic Labor Unrest Spreads to Maryland Colleges
(
In These Times) BALTIMORE Part-time professors at the historic Maryland Institute College of Art are joining a growing movement of academic workers around the country who want a union to help them with fundamental issues of fair pay and decent job conditions.
A committee of part-time facultyalso known as adjunctsfiled a petition on March 7 with the National Labor Relations Board seeking an election to establish Gaithersburg, Md.-based Service Employees International Union Local 500 as its collective bargaining agent. Joshua Smith, one of the committees leaders, tells In These Times that the adjuncts hope to move to an election within just a few weeks.
And instructors at other institutions in the region see the move to unionize as highly necessary. This is an exciting development. Adjuncts really need a union to protect them from the abuses of a system they are unable to change. At the moment, they have no voice ... There can be no sense of community, scholarly or academic, when adjunct faculty are not included in decision-making as to curriculum or policy, says Peggy Beauvois, a part-time instructor in the College of Education at the nearby Loyola University Maryland, which does not employ unionized faculty.
We simply can not meet the needs of students when we must have twoand sometimes threeadjunct positions to even begin to support ourselves. Ive heard stories about adjuncts who cant afford an apartment and are living out of the back seat of their cars, she adds. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/16461/academic_labor_unrest_spreads_to_maryland_colleges