Jack Longmate on Reich, fairness, adjunct work & the economy

 With great pleasure, we welcome a guest post from New Faculty Majority Board Member and long time contingent faculty activist, Jack Longmate (shown left at TESOL 2009), who writes...


Robert Reich's June 6 post [and June 3 SF Gate column], entitled "Fairness is crucial to economic growth," makes a point that I remember Terry Knudsen of Spokane making at a legislative hearing in Olympia several years ago about improving the pay for adjunct faculty. 

Reich writes, 

"The only way the economy can grow and create more jobs is if prosperity is more widely shared... You want to know the real reason the economy crashed in 2008 and why recovery has been so anemic?  Because so much of the nation's income and wealth have become concentrated at the top that America's vast middle class doesn't have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going."  

Clearly when adjunct faculty are provided poverty-level income and when they have no job security, they are hardly in a position to be be they kind of consumers who would revive the economy.  

Welcome to Ohio Mr President ~ NFM Press Release

New Faculty Majority Challenges President Obama: Extend Economic Proposals to Adjunct Faculty

Akron, Ohio - September 8, 2010 - New Faculty Majority President Maria Maisto challenged President Obama to take action on the issue of the mistreatment of adjunct and contingent faculty on American college and university campuses.  The president was in Cleveland, Ohio today to deliver a speech at Cuyahoga Community College, where Ms. Maisto serves as an adjunct instructor in English.  

 "It's great that the president came to my campus to address the economy today," said Ms. Maisto, "because we know that he understands the critical role of higher education in driving economic growth.  

"Unfortunately, however, while it is clear that his concern for the middle class is real, neither his economic recovery plan nor his higher education agenda directly assists the hundreds of thousands of adjunct faculty in the United States who do not receive a living wage, have little job security, are typically denied unemployment compensation when they aren't working, and do not have access to affordable health care." 

"These professionals need economic relief, and they need it now.  They did their part.  They went to college, earned an advanced degree, and are giving back to the next generation of students.  But they are treated like second class citizens in the institutions that depend upon them to teach the highest possible number of critical introductory courses across the curriculum."