As polls for a union of adjunct professors opened last Thursday, members of Tufts Labor Coalition (TLC) celebrated Button Up Day to show support for the union's creation.
TLC members distributed pamphlets and buttons in the Mayer Campus Center and in Dewick-MacPhie and Carmichael Dining Halls to advocate for Adjunct Action, a nation-wide campaign by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that aims to improve benefits, job security and pay for adjunct professors at universities.
According to the Adjunct Action website, approximately 70 percent of faculty members at higher education institutions work on a contingent basis. Seventy-nine percent of adjuncts, however, do not receive health insurance at their college, and 86 percent do not get retirement benefits.
Although adjunct faculty at Tufts receive better benefits than those at many other universities, they still lack many important job qualities, TLC Co-Chair Rae Axner said.
"A lot of the part-time professors have little to no job security," she said. "If their classes are cancelled, they don't get paid, and they're making poverty level wages. This is just to give them more resources to do their job."
An election poll among adjunct faculty on the decision to create a union began on Button Up Day - Sept. 12 - and will remain open until Sept. 25, TLC member and junior Spencer Beswick said. The results will be announced on Sept. 26, wherein if there is enough support for a union, the adjunct faculty members will enter negotiations with administrators about their new contract.
Axner explained that the point of the Button Up Day campaign was not to sway part-time faculty members, but to gain student support and awareness about the issue.
"[The adjunct professors are] very hopeful that the union drive will go through, and the fact that we're here getting support for it is more about getting a base of students when the adjuncts go into negotiations with the administration," she said.
The movement began on campus after a number of students and faculty members attended the "Adjunct Faculty Symposium" hosted by SEIU last spring, according to Beswick. Faculty members from over 20 Massachusetts colleges and universities attended the kick-off event held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
"There were 10 or 15 Tufts professors there who engaged in dialogue with organizers at SEIU, as well as adjunct professors from around the Boston area, and that seemed to be when people really started to seriously consider the possibility of getting a union," Beswick said. "They worked a lot over the summer talking to their colleagues, and they found out that they had enough support to call a vote right now and hopefully win the union."
Beswick added that part-time faculty from a number of schools, including American University, George Washington University and Georgetown University, have already unionized under SEIU.
Both Axner and Beswick believe that the election will result in a union on campus.
"There's definitely majority support for it among adjuncts," Beswick said. "They see the benefits of it, so I do think it's going to happen."
Despite confidence in the union's formation, Axner fears that the adjunct faculty members will face obstacles from university officials.
"The administration has spoken out against it," she said. "They're sort of using threats of increases in tuition and also saying that it would divide the community. Both of those things are not true."
To the assertion that a union would divide faculty, Axner pointed out that a SEIU union already exists on campus for the janitorial staff.
"[Supporting the union is] supporting our faculty as a whole, more than dividing people," she said.
Regarding tuition hikes, Axner believes they are due to an allocation problem rather than a lack of resources. She noted that pay for adjunct faculty has already been frozen for the last several years.
"We pay a lot of money to go here, and we as students should demand that our money is going to professors," she said. "That's the reason that we're here."
