Adjunct Faculty at Suffolk University File for Union Recognition

Boston – The Suffolk Affiliated Faculty/AAUP, a group of adjunct faculty at Suffolk University, petitioned the National Labor Relations Board yesterday to recognize the group as the collective bargaining agent for nearly 450 adjunct faculty at the institution. Adjunct faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences, the New England School of Art and Design, and the Sawyer School of Management would form a bargaining unit to negotiate with the university administration about such issues as pay, benefits, and job security.

Nationwide, part-time (adjunct) faculty make up an increasingly large percentage of the faculty profession. At Suffolk, as at many institutions, they outnumber tenured and tenure-track faculty, and they teach a growing percentage of courses – especially those taken by undergraduates. Typically, adjunct faculty are paid by the course, with no health care or other benefits, and with little or no compensation for the time needed to prepare for classes, to meet with students, to grade exams, to help develop and oversee the curriculum on the campus, or to keep up with developments in their own fields. “The quality of undergraduate education is diminished when colleges and universities choose not to invest in the complex and comprehensive work of instruction,” said Jane Buck, national president of the AAUP.

At Suffolk, adjunct professors fit the national norm. Bob Rosenfeld, Suffolk AAUP chapter president and a leader in the adjunct group commented, “We need to regularize our negotiating with the university. As Suffolk grows, there are more programs and more financial pressures. We are hired by different departments all over the institution and could be overlooked or pushed aside without an organized voice to make our case to the administration.”

At Emerson College, Suffolk’s next-door neighbor, the AAUP adjunct chapter achieved collective bargaining status in 2001 and successfully negotiated a five-year contract with breakthrough gains for the adjunct faculty there. “We’ve also made some gains at Suffolk, Rosenfeld said, “but we need to defend the gains we’ve achieved and address other issues, such as our seven-year waiting period before we qualify for benefits.”

The next step for the Suffolk Affiliated Faculty/AAUP will be an election in the near future, in which adjunct faculty may decide democratically whether they want to be represented by a union.

The American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit charitable and educational organization that promotes academic freedom by supporting tenure, academic due process, and standards of quality in higher education. The AAUP has about 45,000 members at colleges and universities throughout the United States. The AAUP supports the right of faculty to choose to bargain collectively. About 70 of 450 local AAUP chapters serve as collective bargaining agents on their campuses.

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