It's Movie Time! Grace Lee Boggs, An American Revolutionary

… is back, free to watch on PBS through January, a special P.O.V 30th Anniversary treat.

❝Grace Lee Boggs, 98, is a Chinese American philosopher, writer, and activist in Detroit with a thick FBI file and a surprising vision of what an American revolution can be. Rooted for 75 years in the labor, civil rights and Black Power movements, she challenges a new generation to throw off old assumptions, think creatively and redefine revolution for our times. Winner, Audience Award, Best Documentary Feature, 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival. A co-presentation with the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM).❞

A call for public #adjunct discussion of #COCAL_Updates + Sunday Matinee

…because reactions to "adios Updates" post are not landing in comments on blog post or social media. Although about making resources public and open, comments and discussion have not been. Likewise, the original notice ("...in addition to Joe Berry’s regular COCAL updates"), posted publicly went without comment.

On Facebook, discussion appears to be 100% backchannel via pm and closed group -- or groups. Elsewhere, I have no idea, but transparency and open discussion would be more productive. So I'm working on an "Updates Update" Precarity Dispatches post to clarify and (I hope) encourage open discussion, even volunteers for a collaborative Updates Archive Project

Crowdsourcing: Taylorism, tech, online temp work, #adjunct labor

Not all of the many email newsletters hitting my inbox are about education, ed-tech, higher ed, academic casuals or activism. This week, Baffler featured a salvo against the scams and schemes of the tech world, Jacob Silverman's essay "The Crowdsourcing Scam." (with more excellent illustrations by ©Lisa Haney, example below). 

The article refers to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Uber and Yelp ~ among others, not adjuncts, but could apply just as well to the employment and workplace management practices in adjunct-dependent for-profit and non-profit institutions. The editors refer to the article as "another fiery salvo." I want to read the others too.  In a similar vein, read Deb Baker's ❝On being 'discontinued'❞ (via +George Station on G+, also re-blogged on As the Adjunctiverse Turns)

In today's fractured economy, where tasks are increasingly farmed out to low-wage and temp workers, "the result is an extreme form of Taylorism: in boom conditions, workers have more tiny tasks than they can say yes to, but they acquire no skills...they have no contact with other workers, and they have no chance to advance or unionize," Silverman writes. "Imagine a factory in which each employee wears blinders and can see only the thing in front of him on the conveyor belt."

Caveat: as someone who tries to keep up with and uses ed-tech and information technology, I'd qualify the article's network criticism as applying to disconnected networks (an oxymoron in Social Network Analysis, aka SNA) that isolate users, further divided into content/service providers and consumers, instead of connecting them.

shout out to #adjunct #trailblazers: @AndrewR_Physics #EMUFT @3rdLWW

…there are more "adjunct trail blazers" to shout out...and we will try to do just that. To mention just a few, both Annette M. Rodriguez' #WeAreNNMC (also dba @Alacranita) and the UA Convergence campaigns are models for aspiring adjunct activist groups Covered extensively, they deserve separate overview posts…time/energy permitting, they will get them.

In the meantime, the precarious faculty network would like The three in the title recently hit my digital field of vision windshield recently: here's a quick shout out plus links for you to follow and support them. PS there's a video at the end...for dessert.

• Andrew Robinson faces obstacles and a long fight as the first Carleton University contract instructor to try to convert to a FT position per Clause 27.3 of the Collective Agreement. Since applying, administration has isolated him from the department by threatening a TT line. Andrew writes, ❝If I can establish a precedent, then others will be able to follow at our university, but I expect max resistance.❞ He will persevere. We can support him by following and commenting on his blog (also on our blogroll) and @AndrewR_Physics on Twitter

What does #NetNeutrality have to do with #adjunct & other precarious worker activists?

…yes, today is the day…a good day to take on corporate interests, stand up for open, connected learning and keep the internet open and affordable for activism and the activist networks using it to connect activists, build grassroots networks, coordinate actions and inform/educate the public. I hope that answers the why question

As adapted from Fight for the Future's September 4, 2014, Battle for the Internet letter:

The Internet Slowdown, the net neutrality protest planned for today September 10th is taking off. As of September 4, a dozen of the world’s largest websites announced that they’re joining in a big way. Sites you know and use like Etsy, Kickstarter, Wordpress, Vimeo, Mozilla, Namecheap, Foursquare, imgur, and reddit (and surely more by now). Will you join too?

Everyone has a role in the Internet Slowdown. Click here to find out what YOU can do

Evan Greer at Fight for the Future wrote

Open letter, call to action & #petition from @fightfortheftr

…aka Fight for the Future (#FFTF) that is, on some but not all levels, as relevant for #adjunct & all other activist voices as for those in Ferguson MO. Although FFTF's immediate action call is about police militarization, a primary purpose of the organization is to keep the internet accessible to all as a public forum for free speech. 

As counterpoint, reminder and perhaps cautionary tale, @DearSplenda / Jackie Shine's "media history and #Ferguson" Storify reacts to media driven, "View of #Ferguson Thrust Michael Brown Shooting to National Attention" (NYT, David Carr, 8/17/14). The surrounding and expanding story is not about us but does hold important lessons: it's also up to us to hold onto that forum and our voices.

Dear Fight for the Future supporter,

For the past several nights I’ve been glued to the Internet watching livestreams and social media coming out of Ferguson, MO. It’s been heart wrenching, but has also reminded me why I care so much about Internet freedom: it allows for free speech and discussion like never before.

I’m sure you’ve seen the videos and photos: cops firing tear gas and concussion grenades into residential neighborhoods, threatening and arresting journalists at gunpoint, and brutally suppressing protesters standing with their hands in the air chanting, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”[1][2]

The images are frightening. But even more frightening is the reality that this type of crackdown could become commonplace, thanks to millions of dollars of Federal funding that incentivize police forces to resemble an invading army. It has to stop.

Technology should be used to amplify people’s voices, not silence them. As an organization that advocates for tech in the public interest, we felt we have a real role to play to make this stop. 

Right now Congress is considering legislation that would demilitarize local police forces. Click here to tell your lawmakers to cut funding for the weapons of war used to suppress free speech.

Sunday Night at @UStream: #NatGat3 Recap: #Occupy’s 3rd National Gathering « @InterOcc

…another late Sunday Matinee but I'm keeping the tag for filing purposes. This comes from the InterOccupy newsletter, online following and subscribing information below. The collective weight of Gaza (dominating higher education discourse via the "Salaita Affair," drawing HE's academic and tenure discussions into the public sphere ~ when silos collide), the child refugees of the "border crisis," and now #Ferguson, make both light hearted  film and adjunct polemic seem equally inappropriate. Although we are all waste by-products of globalization., these marginalized are far more disposable and at risk than we are. 

PS please note the prescient emphasis on policing and police terror, as well as Palestine, voice and voicelessness...

Together We Rose!  Occupy's Third National Gathering

July 31-August 3 in Sacramento -- just ahead of COCAL XI in NYC, the Occupy movement came together for reflection, learning, planning, sharing—and yes, marching!  Despite drought and heat of 100°+, Occupiers from up and down the West Coast, as well as other areas of the country (and a few from elsewhere on the globe) shared 5 days of activism and discussion.

Watch the General Assemblies and more on these stream channels:

Blog Action Day 2012, Oct15: #powerofwe

…Calling all #highered bloggers to blog for #contingent #academiclabor issues. Let's do this one: try some Power of We on for size. You can choose your own cause to blog for (or blog for more than one). One recommendation suggests focusing on a social change movement. This is ours.

Not a blogger? Maybe it's time to start. Imagine if this one day all the contingent faculty bloggers (even ones not blogging on academia or issues) and our tenured friends like More or Less Bunk, Here Comes Trouble or The Professor is In, AAUP's Academe blog, Campaign for the Future of Higher Ed bloggers and others blogged about this social change movement. Surely someone would notice. 

Hello Bloggers

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates, July 11 & 13

...news & links about #ContingentFaculty, #academiclabor & #organizing in #highered. To subscribe to regular Updates, email joeberry@igc.org.  More about Joe Berry.  Updates are also archived at chicagococal.org. Follow COCAL International on Facebook.  

around the adjunctiverse

Judy Olson's first hand account and detailed analysis of contingent faculty success at NEA Assembly on unemployment support item, also covered by CHE and briefly in IHE   

New blog post by NFM veep Matt Williams, Wet Tinder or the contingent faculty movement catching fire?  

NFM blogger and board member, Bill Lipkin blogs for info about adjunct mentoring programs 

On adjuncting in Catholic higher ed and the threat of it (casualization) spreading into Catholic K12; Nashville K-12 schools going the adjunct route too  

Union made

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates, Mid-May

Check & click new Petitions Feature. Are you shopping an adjunct or higher ed petition? Email link to vanessa.vaile@newfacultymajority.info to add to add here. 

To subscribe to regular Updates, email joeberry@igc.org.  More about Joe Berry.  Updates are also archived at chicagococal.org. Follow COCAL International on Facebook 

Updates in brief and links

Petitions

• Ana’s Adjunct Pay Petition
• Petition OR State U admin to recognize graduate employees' bargaining unit 
• Support forgiveness of student loans
• Tell Vice President Biden: Don't Blame Faculty for the High Cost of College; Most Are "Working Poor!"

Around the Adjunctiverse

Susan Schacher, of Peralta CCD, Laney College, Oakland, CA gets major award.

In her 24th year as a part time temporary instructor and contingent activist at Laney College, Susan is the recipient of the Margaret Quan Part Time Advocate of the Year award presented by the FACCC, the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges.  

• Watch for the Adjunct Tour interview: Duquesne adjuncts to request voluntary union recognition with USW and university declines to recognize union
• More from Debra Leigh Scott, finishing Day 2 on the road with the Adjunct Tour, blogging about disrespected adjuncts as being like stupid sluts at 'Junct Rebellion.
• Why adjuncts unionize, Kalamazoo College MI and their blog Raritan Valley CC (NJ) adjuncts eye raises 
• Utah Valley U adjuncts protest new requirement to reapply for their jobs each semester, more here
• A Gannett story on adjunct faculty use at ULM
• Collection of back posts on Chronicle adjunct / community college blog, The 2-year Track
• A somewhat limited but unnerving, ominous article on contracted academic "coaches" and the company supplying them
• Washington State union adjunct gives unemployment benefits advice.Another (Business Insider) PhD adjunct [from UC Berkeley] on food stamps and yet another (newser, a conservative content mill) recycle the original Chronicle article. Finally, NPR (where it has been replicated on NPR sites across the country) 

HigherEd, Mundo Bizarro

• AFL-CIO blog on Rutgers study on recent grad debt and unemployment, also see comments
• Yet more on consequences of student debt [in depth story, no mention of us contingents]
• A passes new regulations governing for-profits
• Federal consumer board investigating for-profit Corinthian
• CUNY (NY) activists fight for greater access, lower tuition and fees,  and roughed up by cops, in Alternet. Ed (not Joe) note: Alternet runs excellent articles on higher education and labor issues: following highly recommended. Consider spending comment time there to get heard outside the Ivory Silo™ of highered media.
• Severe police attacks on Quebec student strike demonstrators, another account, an adjunct union's evaluation of the "deal" and a good summary update article on the whole Quebec anti-tuition struggle 

Taking Action

• Midwest School for Women Workers: Workers’ Rights, Women’s Rights, Human Rights, July 25-29, 2012, The University of Iowa Labor Center, Iowa City. Visit the Midwest School web page or contact the University of Iowa Labor Center at 319-335-4144 or labor-center@uiowa.edu with any questions. 
• There is another one, also in June, on the West Coast, in SF Bay Area (Sonoma) this year, also July. Check UALE page for details on both. [both are great events, highly recommended]
• NYC cabbies, another group of contingent/precarious workers organizing

Visit COCAL International for information on the  Tenth (X) Conference on Contingent Academic Labor in Mexico City, August 10-12, 2012 at Universidad Nacional Autónimo de México (UNAM), Mexico City. Join International COCAL listserv online or email adj-l@adj-l.org with send "Subscribe" in the subject line. If you have problems subscribing, e-mail vtirelli@aol.com

Joe Berry's COCAL Updates 16April12

Email joeberry@igc.org, to subscribe to regular updates in brief and links by email.  More about Joe Berry.  Updates are also archived at chicagococal.org. Follow COCAL International on Facebook 

Updates in brief and with links: emailed Apr16; reformatted, edited for web Apr19

Breaking... 

AAUP Election Results Reflect Backlash Against Recent Leadership Decisions: Election results (including released late Wednesday showed that all seven members of a slate calling itself "AAUP Organizing for Change" easily won races for the association's top posts, by Peter Schmidt, Chronicle. Incoming AAUP President, Rudy H. Fichtenbaum, Chronicle photo by Leonardo Carrizo  

. 

Taking Action...

Bill Barry (shown here with Mother Jones) has come out with a new book, Union Strategies for Hard Times,  to address every situation an organizer, or an organizing program would confront trying to rebuild the union movement. (PS, love the Labor Studies program tees: "Danger! Educated Union Member")

 The book, 130 pages long, is based on the experiences of many organizers and covers in every topic three different areas—private sector unions, public sector unions and building trades—and includes materials that have been developed both for real campaigns and for organizers' training sessions that Barry has run. The book is $17.00 and can be ordered from me (4204 Elsrode Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21214) or from Union Communications, Inc. in Annapolis. Discounts for orders of more than 10 copies.

NFM members on #LeftForum Panels

There may be other NFM members presenting in addition to Debra Leigh Scott and Joe Berry. If so, please let me know. Looking for panels to follow? A number of the Education track panels should be interest. The Left Forum page also has search for tracking down topics and speakers. For those not in attendance, I'll be following as best I can on twitter, hoping for both good turn out reporting back and presentations being available post-conference. 

 

Occupy Colleges: Rescuing Higher Education from the Corporatized University. Featuring: Debra Leigh Scott, Chris LaBree, Nathan Kleinman, Kyle McCarthy. Session 2, E323, Sat 12:00pm - 01:50pm

The panel will investigate some of the many ways we are pushing back against the corporate colonization of academic culture. Fighting to raise awareness of the issues through documentaries and art-making will be discussed by the writers and filmmakers on the panel. Working to return professional stature, governance and economic justice to the migrant adjunct faculty within traditional academic institutions will be discussed by members of NFM. Creating new models of higher education - like the free university movement, open sourceware opportunities and peer-to-peer educating - will be examined for its benefits and game-changing possibilities. 

About panelists: Debra Leigh Scott and Chris LaBree Co-Producer of 'Junct: The Trashing of Higher Ed. in America, will talk about the 'Junct project, our goals and intentions in the making of the film. Nathan Kleinman, The Free University of Philadelphia Working Group, and candidate for U.S. Congress, in Pennsylvania's 13th District. Kyle McCarthy, Producer of Default: The Student Loan Documentary.

For-Profit Universities: The Corporatization of Higher Ed. Featuring: Susan O'Malley, Joe Berry, Richard Ohmann. Session 4, E321, Sat 05:00pm - 06:40pm

For-profit universities have been in the news a lot recently, chiefly for sleazy and sometimes illegal practices. Since they now enroll more than 10% of college students in the U.S., since their rapid growth parallels the commercialization of traditional universities, and since their competition is hastening that process, they should be understood as one thread in the fabric of gonzo capitalism, not a marginal aberration. 

The Spring 2012 issue of Radical Teacher is about the commercializing of higher education. Susan O'Malley and Richard Ohmann edited the issue and Joe Berry, who has taught at a for-profit and is involved in organizing for-profit faculty, wrote for the issue. Confirmed speakers will be Joe Berry, Richard Ohmann with Susan O'Malley chairing the panel.

Peter Fettner recommends two panels hosted by Dissent Magazine on debt serfdom (Friday night, Schimmel, Opening Plenary) and organizing precarious labor (Session 2, E307, Sat 12:00pm - 01:50pm; co-hosted by Verso Books). 

  

Work in the 21st century has been described as unstable, decentralized, precarious. How can workers organize under conditions of "flexible" employment, or gain leverage against an ever-changing boss? What will organizing look like in the face of massive shifts in risk to the backs of workers? All kinds of workers face these conditions, from home care workers, whose recent victories in New York State have challenged the impossibility of rallying those particularly vulnerable to hidden exploitation, to the "knowledge workers" who make up the Freelancers Union. These panelists will discuss the changing face of organizing in the face of the changing nature of work.

Students on the Front Lines of Class War

So what does that have to do with #adjuncts, #academiclabor & #NFM's #highered mission? In my opinion, plenty. Perhaps Juan Cole's Truthdig essay How Students Landed on the Front Lines of Class War will help explain why we should be there with them. If not, then at least include it in discussions about our purpose and where it fits in the current cultural, economic and higher education landscape.

Joe Wolf (CC-BY-ND)

By Juan Cole

The deliberate pepper-spraying by campus police of nonviolent protesters at UC Davis on Friday has provoked national outrage. But the horrific incident must not cloud the real question: What led comfortable, bright, middle-class students to join the Occupy protest movement against income inequality and big-money politics in the first place?

The University of California system raised tuition by more than 9 percent this year, and the California State University system upped tuition by 12 perceity.


Follow the link to read the rest of How Students Landed on the Front Lines of Class War.


Juan Cole,  a celebrated Mideast scholar and the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, also blogs at Informed Comment. His Truthdig column appears every other Tuesday.

Reading Room: An unsettled moment in #highered

Found the Omnivore piece below languishing in drafts, hopefully not too late. Scott McLemee's Occupy piece may seem a tad outdated and even superseded by now. However, with the International Student Movement's November 7-20 Global Weeks of Action just around the corner, the piece is still timely, a reminder of the global. 

What a fall calendar: Campus Equity Week 2011 next week (and still resources and exhortations to post!); then Campaign for the Future of Higher Education the 1st weekend in November with ISM actions starting the very next week and peaking November 17 on International Students Day... all against the backdrop of ongoing Occupations. Is it just me or could movements use "action planners" to coordinate schedules? What about cooperative actions?

And the rest? Hate, humanities, culture wars, information overload, protests... all relevant. Mind the ellipses: you know the drill. Here four means at least one link. Catch the missing ones online

Professors' #OWS Petition Taking Off

"Professors support Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Movements Everywhere" and more petitions... don't sign just one! If you know of others, send us the links.

Target: The 1%

Sponsored by: Marc Blecher, Steve Crowley, Chris Howell, Steve Volk; Oberlin College

We, the undersigned college and university professors, stand in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movements in New York City, around the country, and around the world. We do so in the knowledge that the dramatic increases in poverty, joblessness and economic insecurity in our society are directly related to the extraordinary rise in inequality, particularly the wealth captured by the 1% of our population, which has deeply corrupted our political system. We stand united with the 99% to take back our economy and government from the 1%.

See also: 

Five Things That #OccupyWallStreet Has Done Right

What can can adjuncts, contingent faculty and other marginalized academic knowledge workers learn from Occupy Wall Street about organizing and building a movement that we can't from either marketing strategies or by the book union methods?

"#OccupyWallStreet protests are now well into their second week, and they are increasingly capturing the public spotlight. This is because, whatever limitations their occupation has, the protesters have done many things right."

1. They chose the right target.

2. They made a great poster.

3. They gave their action time to build.

4. They created a good scenario for conflict.

5. They are using their momentum to escalate.

"... the fact that #OccupyWallStreet has not relied on established progressive organizations ends up being a strength. Its independent participants are inspired by the increasing attention their critique of Wall Street is getting, and they are willing to make greater sacrifices now that their action has begun to capture the public imagination."

Read more about the Five Things That #OccupyWallStreet Has Done Rightat Talking Union .Rephrase the above statement, making judicious substitutions for "Occupy" and "Wall Street." Start thinking about how we could adapt them, scale them down for CEW.

'via Blog this'

Occupation Updates: Breaks in the Media Blackout

NFM has been following, sharing links on FB but not covering Occupy Wall Street in the same depth as either Defend Education and 'Junct Rebellion. Our readers, however, are following events and sharing similar dismay over the conspicuous absence of US mainstream media. This makes a welcome update - and, for others less keenly interested, a cautionary reminder against being too dismissive of a grassroots reaction. Having trouble viewing this? View it on the FAIR website Activism Update: Some Breaks in the Blackout of Wall Street Protests, 9/29/11 After a FAIR Action Alert (9/23/11) criticized the virtual media blackout of the Occupy Wall Street protests, corporate news coverage has increased--sparked largely by the escalating police brutality at the ongoing demonstration. (See FAIR Blog, 9/23/11, for a sample of the messages sent by FAIR activists to the network nightly news shows.)