SCA adjunct professors and supporters serve complaint to dean’s office
The Adjunct Faculty Alliance filed a federal labor charge against USC.
By BANI CHAUHAN & MAYBELINE TUCKER
Emphatic chants of “No contracts, no changes,” rang in the School of Cinematic Arts Courtyard as around 50 students and faculty rallied together Wednesday afternoon to protest against changes made to employment policies of adjunct faculty in the SCA, including allegedly limiting their access to teach second classes. This change would increase class sizes and take away adjuncts’ access to health insurance, union members said.
Speakers from the Adjunct Faculty Alliance-United Auto Workers — which represents SCA adjunct professors, United Faculty-UAW — which is organizing to represent USC’s non-tenure-track faculty — and supporters shared their experiences and called on the University to resume negotiations with offers that would have meaningful changes in policy and restore health insurance.
According to a statement from AFA-UAW, the union is currently in negotiation for its first contract after unionizing in 2024 and alleged that USC made these changes in violation of the National Labor Relations Act.
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“The affected employees are calling for respect, fair process, and lawful engagement from university leadership,” the statement from AFA-UAW read.
Following the speeches, protesters marched up the four stories to Dean Elizabeth Daley’s office and served her an unfair labor practice charge.
AFA-UAW filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board against the School of Cinematic Arts on April 9. The union alleged in the charge that USC violated federal labor laws and failed to bargain in good faith by unilaterally changing employment policies.
The complaint named Daley and claimed that in the last six months, the University implemented changes to its appointments policy and practice, appointment eligibility, and team teaching policy and practice. It claimed the University has not been bargaining in good faith and has not provided notice or an opportunity to bargain when implementing changes.
“Contrary to the union’s allegations, there has been no substantive change in the School of Cinematic Arts’s annual process for making appointment decisions,” the University wrote in a statement to the Daily Trojan. “We remain committed to continuing to bargain with the union in good faith to reach an agreement.”
Peter Gamble, an adjunct faculty professor, struggled when his daughter was diagnosed with a rare congenital heart defect and had to have heart surgery. Gamble said he has struggled to be assigned a second class as the University cut down the amount of classes available for adjunct faculty to teach. He said this was a tactic to avoid providing adjunct instructors with health insurance.
“I always said that teaching at USC was like swimming, doing something you love while carrying a rock and drowning,” Gamble said. “I love teaching, but every time I went home, I didn’t know how I was going to take care of my family and I lost a little bit every time. It was like bleeding out.”
Ryan Boyd, an associate professor at the Dornsife writing program representing UF-UAW, said the unions will be fighting until they have a “real workplace democracy.”
Following the speeches, protesters marched up the four stories to Dean Elizabeth Daley’s office and served her an unfair labor practice charge. (Maybeline Tucker / Daily Trojan)
“I say to my union siblings in AFA that your fight is ours and our fight is yours,” Boyd said.
Current and former students came out to the rally in support of the adjunct faculty. SCA alum Valerie Chu explained that she came out to the rally because of the impact of the adjunct faculty on her life.
“I would just ask that [administrators] stand with the people who have changed so many students’ lives, and like myself, wouldn’t be where they are, working in the industry, working in entertainment if it weren’t for them,” Chu said.
SCA students and alumni wrote an open letter to Daley demanding until a contract is made, teachers be fairly compensated and classes unchanged.
“[Y]ou are pushing through a massive, cost-saving restructure which places an undue burden on full time faculty, while firing many adjuncts, and making many of those who remain teach more classes for less pay,” the letter read.
Over 70% of SCA faculty is made up of adjunct professors, who according to the letter, are working professionals who walk onto sound stages “fresh from a Hollywood Production.”
“We are the number one film school because we are buoyed up by an insanely talented roster of professional filmmakers at the beating heart of this industry,” the letter read. “Not only are they shaping our creative vision, they are ensuring our safety, contributing to the ever growing SCA community and raising the reputation of the school. SCA is nothing without this access to full time working professionals.”
The letter wrote SCA is being “swiftly dismantled” by the dean’s actions and that professors are treated as “disposable objects.”
“[M]any of our most talented and beloved professors have been quietly ‘let go’ without being called back to teach again,” the letter read. “Many have quit in protest at your mishandling of this school. Many who stay have found that you have cut their hours just enough that they will lose their health insurance.”
According to Bonnie Garvin, an adjunct professor who has worked for the University for 18 years, the health insurance decisions made by USC have caused harm to her colleagues.
“How do you do that to people who have been working for you and working for these shitty wages that you pay, and then have the audacity for someone who’s been so loyal to the school and who’s desperate for health insurance and say ‘Screw you’?’” Garvin said. “It’s unconscionable. I don’t know how these people sleep at night.”
According to Garvin, USC has been treating adjunct faculty as disposable objects because experience does not matter to them.
“That your child is going to pay the same outrageous amount of money, whether you have someone like me who’s experienced or you have someone who has never taught a class in their life and they just have a screen credit, [the University does not] care,” Garvin said.
Garvin said the University has not responded to any of the complaints made by the adjunct faculty because they have not been taking them seriously.
“They feel like they can continue to drag their feet because they’re going to win, and they have no interest in really sitting down and bargaining,” Garvin said. “All we’ve asked for, is to sit down with us and take it seriously, negotiate in good faith, as they promised to do and to provide people a living wage.”
Gamble said that adjunct faculty have a commitment and love for teaching at USC, but struggle to go on as the University continues to make policy changes that harm their livelihoods.
“Make no mistake about it, we love the school. We love your students. We love to teach you,” Gamble said. “We love everything about it, except for the fact that we are drowning, trying to survive, trying to take care of our [families].”
