by James Parks, May 9, 2008

The nearly 600 adjunct faculty at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., made a strong statement this week for better pay and benefits by voting for the Adjunct Faculty Organization (AFO), an affiliate of AFT.

The faculty members are concerned about low pay scales that maxed out at $1,700 a course, lack of job security and health insurance and no access to office space for preparation work or to meet with students.

Even though AFT represents regular faculty at the college, Henry Ford officials fought the adjunct faculty’s desire for a voice, says Mary Beck, AFO’s interim president. But the workers overcame the school’s anti-union campaign the old-fashioned way: with shoe leather and door knocking.

Says Beck:

We met one on one with adjuncts, listened to their concerns, established a relationship. Adjuncts feel they have a voice.

The adjuncts also had a strong ally among students. In less than two weeks, more than 1,000 students signed a petition supporting their teachers.

The new union members include all adjunct faculty teaching credit-awarding classes, as well as those doing noncredit instructional work as part-time librarians, counselors, English Language Institute and Learning Lab instructors, job-placement officers and cooperative-education specialists.

AFT Michigan also represents adjuncts at Wayne State University, Wayne County Community College, the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University. Nationally, AFT represents 165,000 college faculty members, professional staff and graduate employees, including 60,000 contingent faculty members.

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