after Earth Day comes May Day

…both exercises in calling out unsustainable practices and their consequences…Beltane and Maypoles aside, May Day is more about workplace rights than greenery.

snippets of history:

On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike...The UK protest actually took place on a Sunday, and in London alone attracted 300,000 protesters to Hyde Park.

For more than a century, May Day has been a celebration of the international labor movement and is a national holiday in more than 80 countries. For obvious reason, it is a popular date for rallies, marches and protests. Last year, Occupy was the dominant theme: this year, seemingly less so. Observances are still planned for Chicago, New York and major cities around the world…and on campuses too.

October 2012 Bullhorn

…New Paltz UUP chapter newsletter, The Bullhorn, courtesy of Peter DG Brown, Chapter President and NFM member; Note links to current and back archived issues on the New Paltz site. 

This newsletter always has good articles on contingent faculty issues and the academic precariat. NFM Foundation President Anne Wiegard has a piece in this is issue. There is also a reprint of an article by Steve Street and a report on a labor-management meeting, specifically noting interactions on adjunct issues.

BULLHORN OCT 2012.pdf 
Download this file

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The Bullhorn, Feb-Mar2012 #newfac12

BULLHORN, Feb.-March 2012.pdf Download this file

 

Attached, courtesy of NFM board member Peter D.G. Brown, is the February-March issue of The Bullhorn, the New Paltz UUP chapter’s newsletter / magazine, also available online. Most of the issue is devoted to contingency and the NFM Summit last month.

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Names 101: By Any Other Name

Guest post by New Faculty Majority's Anne Wiegard, previously published in Cortland Cause, SUNY Cortland's UUP chapter's April 2011 newsletter. Every year, Cause wins awards in a competition of all the SUNY chapter newsletters.



Students unhesitatingly call us “Professor,” for that is who we are to them. They do not know that almost everyone else we work with is either confused or in conflict about the proper designation for faculty teaching off the tenure track.

Sadly, though contingent academic employees are faculty, they know that communications addressed generally to “Faculty,” are often not actually intended for them, in the same way that women in the 1950s knew that memos addressed generally to employees were usually understood to pertain only to males.  Men were the norm, so a memo only applied to women if specifically qualified, as in “Female Employees” or perhaps given a separate category altogether, as in “The Secretarial Pool.”

UUP Chapter at SUNY New Paltz marks Campus Equity Week

Campus Equity Week (CEW) is a bi-annual, national week of action to call attention to the working conditions of part-time, adjunct, and other contingent academic and professional faculty in higher education. The local chapter of United University Professions (UUP) on the SUNY New Paltz campus has actively participated in CEW for many years. This year, CEW is being held across the country from October 26 to 30.

New Paltz UUP Chapter President Richard Kelder states that 

“we have been trying for years to improve pay and working conditions for our part-timers and adjuncts and our union has had some success. Through the efforts of UUP the salary of adjuncts has increased in the past 10 years and we have been able to secure health insurance and other benefits. However, their compensation still lags far behind full-time faculty on campus. The major problems are the continued under funding of SUNY by NY State and a lack of political will on the part of our legislators to fund and support public higher education. UUP will continue to take a public stand to ensure that our citizens are able to receive a quality postsecondary education and that all faculty and staff are compensated fairly for their knowledge, talents, and teaching ability. For campus equity week, UUP will be speaking to faculty, staff, legislators, students and their parents to inform them of the situation that many SUNY instructors and others face every day. Many of our adjunct faculty have served the college with distinction and dedication for many years and are entitled to job security and better compensation.” 

Currently, part-time or adjunct faculty comprise slightly less than half of the teachers at SUNY New Paltz. They teach about a third of all the courses at SUNY New Paltz.