Adjunct Professors, Broadcast Techs and More Join AFL-CIO Unions

by Mike Hall, Mar 9, 2007

Drivers, dispatchers and other workers at Bend Area Transit System in central Oregon voted to join ATU Local 757.

Earlier this week, we reported on the 800 Kaiser Permanente nurses who formed a union with United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP) so they could bargain for a better life.

Other workers across the country—from college professors in New Jersey to bus drivers in Oregon—recently have come together to form unions. Some won their choice to join a union as the Kaiser nurses did, through majority sign up, but others were forced to struggle through the severely flawed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process.

Under majority sign-up, a key point of the House-passed Employee Free Choice Act—after workers sign cards saying they want to join a union and their signatures are verified, the employer agrees to recognize their choice. (Click here, here and here to read recent news about the AFL-CIO’s mobilization to win the Employee Free Choice Act.)

This week, Barbara McKenna, managing editor of AFT on Campus, sent us word that 400 adjunct professors at Essex County College in New Jersey, who haven’t seen a raise in 10 years, won a voice at work with the New Jersey Federation of Teachers/AFT.

The adjunct faculty formed their union because of a 2005 New Jersey state law that allows a wide range of public employees to decide if they want to join a union under majority sign-up. Lynne Cummins, an Essex activist and psychology adjunct teacher, says 73 percent of the instructors signed union authorizations cards in the organizing drive that began last September.

For most part, people were so ready and receptive that it didn’t take a lot of convincing. Adjuncts love the work they do and the impact they have on the community.

Adjunct faculty teach the majority of courses at the college, which employs only around 150 full-time instructors. Adjunct professors love their work, Cummins says. But fueling their desire to form a union is the low-pay and lack of e-mail, voice mail and a place to meet students—and many other essential tools fundamental to providing student support. At times, some adjunct professors have no access to a computer or copying services when they need them.

Elsewhere in organizing victories:

It’s all legal…More than 100 Oneida (Wis.) County courthouse workers voted to join AFSCME Council 40 as did 21 Crawford County sheriff’s officers. Choosing AFSCME Council 13 in Pennsylvania are 95 certified nursing assistants at St. Luke’s Village, a retirement home in Hazelton, 50 workers in the Somerset County Area Agency on Aging and 15 Somerset County sheriff deputies.

In New York, 60 Westchester County Medical Center Couriers joined Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME 1000. Twenty-four child care providers at Hunts Point Day Care, along with 10 workers at the AIDS advocacy housing group Tenant and Neighbors, joined AFSCME District Council 1707. In New Shoreham, R.I., 45 city workers voted to join AFSCME Council 13 and 30 Richmond, Ind., City Parks Department employees voted for AFSCME Council 62.

They didn’t bend or break…The drivers, dispatchers, customer service reps and other workers at Bend (Ore.) Area Transit System voted to join Transport Workers (ATU) Local 757. Says Local 757 President Jon Hunt, the workers were assisted in the drive to win a voice at work by the Central Oregon Labor Council, Jobs with Justice and other community allies.

This election shows that you can win union campaigns in central Oregon when all unions work together.

Gimme an E!…The more than 30 freelance broadcast technicians—camera, sound and videotape personnel—who recently covered the pre- and post “Red Carpet “ action for 2007 Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, Grammies and Oscar broadcasts for the cable station E!—did so under the terms of a Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) contract. The permanent employees of production company, FBR Productions, are IATSE members, and FBR agreed to recognize the union for the freelancers. IATSE is working with the freelance workers, who cover live shows, such as sports and awards, to win a voice at work.

IAM for Penske, roger that…In Plymouth, Mich., 10 workers at Penske Truck Leasing Co. joined Machinists (IAM) Local Lodge 698. Workers at more than 40 other Penske locations are IAM members.

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