Non-tenured faculty vote to form union


Adjunct faculty voted Tuesday to unionize in two of three schools considering the action, according to the Los Angeles Times. Faculty at the Roski School of Art and Design and USC International Academy voted to join the Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents public service workers across Southern California. Faculty at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences rejected the move.

In November, approximately 500 nontenured faculty members representing the three schools filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board, asking to join the bargaining unit. The NLRB evaluated the petition and the University’s response, and conducted a survey to determine which faculty members would be included in the union. All eligible faculty were able to cast one vote; the Roski vote went through 31 to 6, and the International Academy approved the vote 32 to 3. Dornsife faculty opposed the move with 113 in favor of unionization and 127 against.

Non-tenure track faculty include lecturers, visiting professors and part-time faculty. Unlike tenure-track faculty, they are paid to teach some classes, lead discussion groups and grade papers and are not evaluated on the research they conduct. In the 2015-2016 academic year, USC employs 1,472 tenured and tenure-track faculty members and 4,265 non-tenure-track faculty, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The average salary for non-tenure track faculty at USC is $5,044 per course, according to the SEIU. Full benefits are currently offered to part-time faculty who work for at least 50 percent of the 37.5 or 40 hours per week required of full-time faculty, according to the USC benefits website. These requirements leave many faculty members taking on multiple courses in order to earn a living wage or qualify for benefits, leaving them little time for their own research.

Some non-tenure track faculty such as Kate Levin, who has taught part-time in the writing program at USC since 2011, believe that joining the union is a first step in the process of participating in a nationwide movement to improve working conditions for faculty members on college campuses.

“Having been a member of a faculty union at another school, I know how valuable it is to have a way to bargain collectively with the university over issues that matter to us and our students,” Levin said in a statement on the USC Faculty Union website.

In an email to staff members on Jan. 6, Provost Michael Quick stressed the options non-tenure track faculty members have without unionizing, such as asking for a review of their salary, working toward promotion to full-time faculty or expressing their views in the Academic Senate.

“I remain fully committed, as always, to working with each faculty member, and with the Academic Senate and other faculty governance bodies, to make USC a place where the faculty is well supported,” Quick wrote.

The move to unionize makes USC one of the largest universities with a faculty union, joining institutions such as Boston University, Georgetown University, Tufts University and Whittier College. Faculty at Whittier, who obtained a union contract in July, obtained “average pay increases of 35 percent,” according to the SEIU.