Pictured above: As the administration of then-USF system President Judy Genshaft mounted fierce opposition to the union campaign, adjuncts rebuked her at a rally on Nov. 29, 2017, on the Tampa campus.
Nancy McCann | The Crow’s Nest
By Nancy McCann
Adjunct faculty on USF’s three campuses would get minimum pay standards and other benefits under a tentative contract worked out by union negotiators and the university administration.
The contract, which will be submitted to a vote of eligible adjunct faculty sometime in July, would have the following provisions, according to chief union negotiator Rick Smith:
** According to Smith, adjuncts would have “minimum standards of pay,” which would mean raises for 36 percent of the adjuncts in St. Petersburg.
** If classes they have prepared for are canceled at the last minute, adjuncts would receive $300. Now, they get nothing.
** If a hurricane or other conditions interrupt classes, adjuncts would receive emergency pay.
** Adjuncts would have the right to be represented by the union if problems arise at work. They would also be entitled to formal grievance proceedings, with an arbitrator.
** Department chairs would be required to meet with adjuncts at least once a year to discuss the financial condition of the department, professional development opportunities, staffing issues and how to further engage adjuncts in decision-making policies.
** No changes would be made about adjuncts’ work conditions or pay without bargaining with the union.
** The university would create an official adjunct pool list so that department chairs on all three campuses would be aware of all adjuncts available for teaching classes.
Smith and other union negotiators work for the Florida Public Services Union of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU-FPSU.
Adjuncts have complained in the past that they do not have campus offices where they can meet with students and prepare for classes, and that complaint is not addressed in the tentative contract. But the contract specifies that adjuncts are entitled to use university facilities – like conference rooms – for training and meetings.
In addition, the contract does not provide health insurance benefits. Smith said union negotiators were surprised to learn that adjuncts are already eligible to use student health centers on all three campuses.
“I want to make that (health coverage) better as we move down the line or actually get some real insurance,” said Smith. “That’s a distance away, but we do want to let people know that, yes, this existed before and nobody ever told you.”
The proposed contract “is a good beginning,” said Tara Blackwell, an adjunct instructor in biology on the Tampa campus, who helped lead the drive to unionize and then participated in the negotiations. “And we’ll get better from here.”
The proposed contract caps a campaign that adjuncts launched in the spring of 2017 seeking better pay, benefits, job security and more inclusion in campus life.
Although it has been estimated that nearly half of the teachers in St. Petersburg are adjuncts and teach many of the university’s core courses, adjuncts have long been voiceless, poorly paid players with no job security in the system.
“We are the have-nots, with no job security from one semester to another,” Rebecca Skelton, then a USF St. Petersburg adjunct in art, declared in 2017.
“It’s wrong to pay people so little that many adjuncts are on public assistance. My husband calls us the migrant workers of academia.”
At USF, the pay for adjuncts has been set by the college (and department) they teach in. The philosophy on using adjuncts seems to vary from college to college and department to department.
The proposed adjunct contract would bring some stability to the picture, Smith said, by establishing pay minimums. In arts and sciences, he said, the minimum would be $1,000 per credit hour; in business, $1,167; and in undergraduate studies, $833.
That means that 36 percent of the adjuncts in St. Petersburg would get a raise. In Tampa, it would be 20 percent and in Sarasota-Manatee, 18 percent.
The proposed contract, which has a term of three years, specifies that negotiations on salaries would be reopened in 18 months.
Since filing a petition in April 2017 to hold a union election, adjuncts in the USF system – under the name Faculty Forward – fought hard for the right to get union representation.
The administration under then-USF system President Judy Genshaft attacked the adjuncts’ efforts at every turn and tried to squash their petition.
Messages to adjuncts from top administrators and information sessions delivered by a paid consultant painted a risky portrait of union representation.
In a 37-page document submitted to the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission in October 2017, the university described adjuncts as “temporary” employees with “no continued expectation of employment” who are “appointed to their positions for the specific purpose of filling unexpected ‘holes’ in the teaching schedule.”
Information available then showed that about half of the faculty members at USF St. Petersburg were adjuncts.
In 2015, they taught 39 percent of all undergraduate student credit hours and 68 percent of all undergraduate course sections, according to numbers that had been submitted to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Despite attempts by the USF Board of Trustees to thwart the formation of a union, the adjuncts won approval to hold a union election, which ran from Feb. 16 to March 13 in 2018.
During the election, the USF St. Petersburg administration attacked the reputation of the union.
“This is a union with a controversial history of questionable practices, including serious unlawful conduct,” said an email to adjuncts from Olufunke A. Fontenot, then-interim vice chancellor for academic affairs in St. Petersburg. “Is this the kind of union you want representing you?”
She also warned that some adjuncts might end up with lower salaries and that students’ education could suffer because of unionization.
Attached to the email was a flyer Fontenot urged adjuncts to post outside their homes to block “unwelcome” home visits by the union and adjunct organizers.
Despite the unsparing opposition from leadership on the Tampa and St. Petersburg campuses, USF system adjuncts voted overwhelmingly to form a union.
In a tally released by SEIU-FPSU, the vote was 326 yes and 91 no. The state Public Employees Relations Commission, which conducted the election, said there were 893 eligible voters.
The three USF campuses joined schools like Duke, Georgetown, Tufts and the University of Chicago where adjuncts have won union elections.
The USF election was the third victory in Florida for adjuncts organized under the name Faculty Forward, following Broward College and Hillsborough Community College. Since then, adjuncts at other Florida schools – Lake-Sumter State College, Seminole State College and Miami Dade College – have also voted to unionize.
Around the country in recent years, the number of adjuncts has been rising as college administrators seek to hold down costs.
As of 2017, adjuncts (not including graduate assistants and other non-tenure track employees) made up more than 40 percent of the faculty in universities across the United States. In 1975, it was 25 percent.
Part-time faculty typically fall into four groups: Graduate students; retired academics and other professionals; people working in government and private business who like to teach on the side; and teachers striving for a career in higher education by piecing together jobs each semester, sometimes at multiple schools.
At USF, both regular faculty and teaching assistants have unions. Until 2018, adjuncts did not.
“It’s been a long road and there are certainly things we need to continue to work on,” said Greg McCreery, an adjunct who has taught on the St. Petersburg and Tampa campuses and has been a leader alongside Blackwell in the union efforts since the beginning.
“Things like this are rarely a revolution overnight,” said Blackwell. “One of the big things the contract does . . . is give us a foundation to build on in the future.
“Whereas before, everything was just kind of — we made it up as we went.”
