Adjunct instructors at the Jesuit university earn a base pay of $7,000 per course, a wage that the unions Fordham Faculty United and SEIU Local 200 United fought for in their first contract with the administration in 2018. That expired in June 2021.
The university and the union have been negotiating since March, and agreed to federal mediation in early December, according to George and SEIU Local 200 union spokesperson Chris Machanoff. The university, with a 85-acre main campus in The Bronx and satellite campuses at Lincoln Center in Manhattan and in Westchester, currently pays adjuncts well below the Modern Language Association’sof $11,500 per course. That figure does not factor in the regional cost of living, which is considerably higher in New York City than the national average.
“We have so much respect and empathy for our adjunct faculty, and we’re working hard to make a difficult situation better. Like so much else, higher education in this country has become increasingly divided. Universities invested in research by gradually reducing the teaching load of tenure-track faculty. As a result, none but the wealthiest schools could then afford to hire enough tenure-track faculty to cover the curriculum with reduced teaching loads.
The threat of an adjunct strike at Fordham comes just after adjunct instructors at The New School in Manhattan, represented by ACT-UAW Local 7902,for three weeks at the end of the fall semester. The school resorted to an all-remote catalog that featured podcast episodes and readings, before agreeing to a 36% wage increase over five years that would still top out at $7,820 per course.
“It’s all one unified system of exploitation,” Robins said. “So many adjuncts will teach at multiple schools. And so many of the management groups are receiving the same [worthless] recommendation from consultants on how to exploit labor.”FFU and SEIU Local 200 United are also negotiating for stronger health benefits. Members currently only have access to what is called a bronze plan that the university contributes nothing towards, according to George, the Fordham adjunct.
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