Demanding Equity for Adjunct Faculty

Our college/university Presidents love to claim that we would do better if we just negotiated with them directly and cut out the State. Well, here’s proof that they are, to put it politely, disingenuous.

Adjunct salaries are minimums. According to the Adjunct Faculty Agreement, “Each College/University has the right to pay employees above the minimum adjunct faculty rate based on policies and practices established by the College/University.” There may be some cases where selected adjuncts are paid over the minimum, but they are few and far between.

In the last round of negotiations, the Council sought to increase adjunct salaries to the level of full-time faculty overload rates. Even though the difference was only $100 per credit, the State refused.

Adjunct faculty teaching their courses and full time faculty teaching overload courses are doing exactly the same work. In both cases the instructor is paid to teach, without any research or service component. Why, then, do our institutions refuse to pay adjunct faculty the overload rate, when they have the contractual authority to do so?

Now that adjunct faculty have been working without a contract for over a year and a half with their salaries frozen—and with no agreement in sight— it is time to put the college/university Presidents on the spot. Ask them if they stand for equal pay for equal work?

If so, let them raise adjunct salaries to match the overload rate with our gratitude.

If not, it is time to DEMAND THE EQUALIZATION OF ADJUNCT SALARIES AND OVERLOAD PAY.