149144 - ffe colloquium big steps and small steps: making progress on employment issues

149144 - FFE Colloquium Big Steps and Small Steps: Making Progress on Employment Issues

Big Steps and Small Steps: Making Progress on Employment Issues


One step: Save fuel by lessening freeway flying.


Liberalize the cap that limits part-time faculty workload.


http://www.seattlepi.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/372542_longmate29.html


What kind of progress can be made during this recession?


As a testament to the severity, in Washington State, there’s contemplation of a “Declaration of a Financial Emergency.”


A financial emergency would expedite layoffs of “probationary and tenured faculty.”


What is the response to these challenges?

COPTEC 149144 - FFE Colloquium Big Steps and Small Steps: Making Progress on Employment Issues

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20090205/news/302059994


A Green River Community College faculty leader said, “… we are being asked to cut classes with low enrollment, esp. those taught by adjuncts, to reduce our annual over expenditure of the part time budget.”


Green River Community College cut 50 adjunct courses during its winter term, and another 50 during its spring term.


Green River Community College cut 50 adjunct courses during its winter term, and another 50 during its spring term.

Half of GRCC’s English adjuncts who taught in the fall term were laid off winter term.


A union leader from Lake Washington Technical College said:

“Our 4.1% cut for 2008-09 adds up to $600,000, and they've identified all the areas affected. The biggest impact on instruction is cutting ABE/ESL sections, apprenticeships, and low-enrolled programs to be identified.”


Wenatchee Valley College, which serves an area as large as Massachusetts and Rhode Island (more than 10,000 square miles), has had to severely cut its ESL classes that serve the significant Hispanic population.


http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/south_king/ren/lifestyle/41057664.html


In the current climate of budget reductions, ESL programs are vulnerable for two reasons:


(1) ABE/ESL and academic ESL programs do not generate great revenue.


(2) The belief is still widespread that if one can speak a language, one can teach that language.


Therefore, those who teach ESL are not as worthy as other teaching professionals.


While the current recession is a hardship to many in our economy, part-time faculty are used to it.


What’s happening nationally?


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/13/kentucky


http://www.aftface.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=497&Itemid=63


http://www.sltrib.com/education/ci_11814240


Model template of Weber Stateprotest letter designed by John Hess

[email protected]


Part of adj-l Contingent Academics Mailing List campaign to flood Weber State with e-mails of protests of pay cuts to adjunct instructors


A new national association is forming that has adopted the name, “New Faculty Majority: National Coalition for Adjunct and Contingent Equity”


http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/higher_ed/AmerAcad_report_97-07.pdf

For 2007 per AFT's American Academic (2/2009), titled "The State of the Higher Education Workforce 1997-2007“:

Total number of instructional staff in US higher education: 1,574,685

Distribution by instructional staff type:

Part-time faculty [adjuncts]: 37% = 582,633Full-time tenured/tenure-track faculty: 27% = 425,165Graduate assistants: 21% = 330,383Full-time non-tenured faculty: 15% = 236,202

http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/higher_ed/AmerAcad_report_97-07.pdf


From Research Report 98-04, Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, “PART-TIME FACULTY IN WASHINGTON COMMUNITY AND TECHNICAL COLLEGES” June 1998


Since the field of ESL is among the most dominated of all fields by adjuncts, it is appropriate for TESOL, the foremost ESL professional association, to be concerned about the overreliance on adjuncts.


What can be done?


What can be done…as an ESL

professional?


What can be done…as an ESL

professional?as a citizen?


What can be done…as an ESL professional?as a citizen?as a TESOL member?


What can be done…as an ESL professional?as a citizen?as a TESOL member?as a profession?


At your school: (1) Form a committee of two (at least) to raise issues on your campus.


At your school: (1) Form a committee of two (at least) to raise issues on your campus. (2) If possible, join your union.


At your school: (3) Support Campus Equity Week and/or New Majority Faculty Day.

Campus Equity Week (CEW)

(in US)

Fair Employment Week (FEW)(in Canada)



As a citizen:(1)Contact your legislator(s).


As a citizen:(1)Contact your legislator(s). Since higher ed funding is handled at the state level, state legislators are key.


As a citizen:(2)Consider organizing a “Legislative Forum” on your campus.


A legislative forum is a low cost but highly visible way to register adjunct needs to lawmakers.


A legislative forum is a low cost but highly visible way to register adjunct needs to lawmakers.

It’s also easy to organize.


http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2008/ND/Feat/long.htm


(3) Encourage adjuncts to file for Unemployment Benefits between terms or if they are laid off.

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Many adjuncts are reluctant to apply; some fear that claiming unemployment could interfere with their chance to be rehired.



Organize an Unemployment Workshop for adjuncts at your school.

FOR ADJUNCT FACULTY

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Be aware some colleges contract with “employment services” that may lie or may try to intimidate adjunct claimants.


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Be aware some colleges contract with “employment services” that may lie or may try to intimidate adjunct claimants. [This is subject of an ethics violation in Washington state at present.]


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Excellent booklet downloadable from Chicago COCAL

http://www.chicagococal.org/

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“As soon as they (the colleges) start paying all these costs, then the difference (between hiring full-time and part-time faculty) shrinks. It may start being more profitable to just pay a full-timer.”

Wendy Rader-KonofalskiChronicle of Higher

EducationOct 8, 2004, p. A11.



As a TESOL member:


As a TESOL member:(1) Join the Forum for Fair Employment (FFE)


As a TESOL member:(1) Join the Forum for Fair Employment (FFE), formerly COPTEC (Caucus on Part-Time Employment Concerns)

As a TESOL member:

(2) Support and take part in TESOL’s advocacy efforts.


TESOL has a rich tradition of advocacy on behalf of adjuncts and the profession.


TESOL has a rich tradition of advocacy on behalf of adjuncts and the profession, including position papers.


TESOL approved a new Position Paper on Fairness and Equity in Program Reduction (March 23, 2009)


TESOL has 8 Member Resolutions specific to part-time/adjunct faculty:


• Member ResolutionsHome : About : Governance : Mbr Resolutions

• TESOL Member Resolution in Support of Professional Development Credit for Part-time, Adjunct, and Contingent Faculty (2006) The membership of TESOL recommends that TESOL support and encourage the establishment of salary schedules for part-time, adjunct, and contingent faculty.

• TESOL Member Resolution in Support of Campus Equity Week (CEW) and Conference on Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL) (2002) The membership of TESOL supports Campus Equity Week (CEW), which seeks to draw attention to the unprincipled use of contingent academic labor at all levels of teaching ESOL where regular, tenured, full-time or part-time faculty would be more professionally appropriate.

• TESOL Member Resolution on Health Benefits for Part-Time Instructors in the United States (1994) TESOL urges the U.S. Congress and state legislatures to include in any health reform legislation, employer-provided health insurance benefits for all part-time teachers.

• TESOL Member Resolution on the Use of Part-Time Instructors (1988) TESOL urges agencies, institutions, and programs that provide ESOL instruction to make new and concerted efforts to eliminate the inappropriate use of part-time instructors. In cases where part-time instructors must be hired, TESOL urges that these instructors be provided with adequate working conditions, salary, benefits and all other privileges accorded to full-time instructors.

• TESOL Member Resolution on Part-Time Faculty and Fringe Benefits (1981) TESOL recommends that part-time faculty in ESL programs be entitled to fringe benefits in fair proportion to those available to full-time teachers.

• TESOL Member Resolution on the Need for Qualified Full-Time Teachers (1981) TESOL recommends that a significant majority of the faculty in any ESL program be full-time employees qualified in teaching ESOL.

• TESOL Member Resolution on Insurance for Part-Time Employment (1980) TESOL shall make arrangements to provide to members of TESOL who are employed part-time optional health and life insurance.

• TESOL Member Resolution on Employment Conditions (1980) TESOL commissions in-depth studies of various employment conditions be undertaken by ad hoc committees and that possible solutions be presented in writing to the president at or before the beginning of the 1981 convention.


http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/index.asp

http://www.tesol.org/s_TESOL/seccss.asp?CID=3&DID=4



http://www.tesol.org/s_TESOL/sec_document.asp?CID=87&DID=5901

http://www.tesol.org/s_TESOL/sec_document.asp?CID=87&DID=246

Within the constraints of an IRS 501(c)3 non-profit, TESOL has promoted the contingent faculty equity movement:



TESOL has supported the conferences of the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL)

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In the final analysis, members of the TESOL profession, like members of every other profession, have a right to defend themselves and the importance and dignity of their jobs.


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But members of the TESOL profession have a trump card:


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Our students.


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Our students, and their needs, and those of their families.


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It may be a pity for ESL teachers to lose their jobs, but what about ESL students, who may not have the language or cross-cultural skills to get a job in the first place?


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Unofficial text from proposed TESOL “Position Statement on Fairness and Equity in Program Reduction”:


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When economic conditions necessitate cutbacks in funding, TESOL urges public policy makers and managers of educational institutions to exercise fairness and equity in administering program cuts so as not to disadvantage culturally and linguistically diverse student populations or those who may already be suffering the debilitating effects of poverty.


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TESOL further urges institutions and agencies to provide full support to the maintenance, especially during uncertain economic times, of programs that strive to address the cultural, linguistic, and academic needs of students at all educational levels and institutions who are learning English as a second language. As they may be disproportionately affected by difficult economic times, we urge the continued funding of such programs and their staff at levels sufficient to ensure the positive impact that such programs bring.


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In short, when we in the profession of TESOL fight for our profession, we are also fighting for our students’ needs.


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In short, when we in the profession of TESOL fight for our profession, we are also fighting for our students’ needs. That is the just and righteous thing to do.


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[email protected] Chair, TESOL’s Employment Issues Committee (EIC)

Adjunct English InstructorOlympic CollegeBremerton, WA


149144 - ffe colloquium big steps and small steps: making progress on employment issues

Documents

small steps

employment issues big

employment issueshttp

kind of progress

winter term

spring term

fall term

adjunct courses