Info from the Washington State Part Time Faculty Association,
Please contact Legislators to ask they do NOT vote for 2ESSB5194
This is a bad bill, that doesn't help all of the Washington State College Faculty.
"The Washington State House College and Workforce Development Committee will be hearing
2ESSB 5194
this coming Monday at 1:30 p.m. Since the Chair has already scheduled
it for a vote this coming Wednesday, it seems the Dems are intent on
passing the bill this session.
The unions have run similar bills for years, all without passing.
It is part of the AFT's Faculty and College Excellence Plan (FACE),
which ultimately seeks to reverse the part-time/full-time ratio so 70%
of the faculty will be full-timers. They aim to do this by taking
courses from current part-timers.
While this bill had some language about "equal pay for equal
work," it did not necessarily apply to part-timers, and it was dropped
as the bill ran into problems. There is nothing in this bill about
improving part-time pay at all.
If you have time, it would help to drop even a short note asking
the legislators to vote against 2ESSB 5194. It's quickest to send it to
the chair, with copies to the committee members. But individual notes
are nice, especially if they are to your own legislators"
SAMPLE LETTER from Dr. Keith Hoeller:
Cc: "
debra.entenman@leg.wa.gov" <
debra.entenman@leg.wa.gov>, "
mari.leavitt@leg.wa.gov" <
mari.leavitt@leg.wa.gov>, "
kelly.chambers@leg.wa.gov" <
kelly.chambers@leg.wa.gov>, "
cyndy.jacobsen@leg.wa.gov" <
cyndy.jacobsen@leg.wa.gov>, Bruce Chandler <
bruce.chandler@leg.wa.gov>, Drew Hansen <
drew.hansen@leg.wa.gov>, "
larry.hoff@leg.wa.gov" <
larry.hoff@leg.wa.gov>, "
vicki.kraft@leg.wa.gov" <
vicki.kraft@leg.wa.gov>, "
dave.paul@leg.wa.gov" <
dave.paul@leg.wa.gov>, Gerry Pollet <
gerry.pollett@leg.wa.gov>, Mike Sells <
mike.sells@leg.wa.gov>, "
robert.sutherland@leg.wa.gov" <
robert.sutherland@leg.wa.gov>
Date: 03/19/2021 12:08 PM
Subject: WA Part-Time Faculty Association Opposes E2SSB 5194
Rep. Vandana Slatter
Chair, College & Workforce Development Committee
Olympia, WA 98504
cc: Committee Members
RE: WA Part-Time Faculty Association's Opposition to E2SSB 5194
Though you have scheduled E2SSB 5194 for a hearing this Monday,
March 22, you have already scheduled it for executive session on
Wednesday, March 24. This bill, sponsored solely by Democrats and pushed
by the two faculty unions (WEA and AFT), is similar to previous
unsuccessful bills seeking to create more full-time faculty positions by
taking jobs away from current part-time faculty. I will explain why it
is a shameful piece of legislation.
1.
More Full-Time Faculty Will Do Nothing to Improve Diversity, Equity, or Inclusion
2.
E2SSB 5194 Will Mean From 200 to 600 Part-Time Professors Lose Their Jobs
3. Part-Timers May Not Be Able To Collect Unemployment
4.
More Full-Timers Will Not Increase Student Success
5.
2ESSB 5194 Will Increase the Number of Full-Time Union Members
6.
WA Legislature Has Abandoned Its Commitment to Equality for the Part-Timers
1. More Full-Time Faculty Will Do Nothing to Improve Diversity, Equity, or Inclusion
2ESSB 5194 is supposed to be about diversity, equity and
inclusion. Yet this multimillion dollar boondoggle has tacked on to it a
plan to convert 400 part-time to 200 full-time positions.
As I state in my
New York Times article, "
An Academic Divide," several
research studies show that adjuncts and other contingent professors who
teach off the tenure-track are in fact the better teachers, calling
“into question the myth that the two-track system in
academe is an equal opportunity merit system. It is not; it is in fact a
caste system with the tenured faculty occupying the upper caste and the
off-track faculty serving as the 'untouchables.'”
2. E2SSB 5194 Will Mean From 200 to 600 Part-Time Professors Lose Their Jobs
Since it takes two part-timers working half-time to form one
FTE (full-time equivalent) position, then a minimum of 200 and a maximum
of 600 current part-timers could lose their jobs with this bill.
And there is nothing in this bill about promoting current
part-timers to full-timers at a particular college. The bill seeks to
take away courses from current part-timers and put them on the state and
national markets. The part-timers would then have to apply from scratch
and compete with hundreds of other applicants to teach the same courses
they taught successfully for years.
3.
Part-Timers May Not Be Able To Collect Unemployment.
In "
Why Adjuncts Deserve Unemployment Compensation," I wrote that teachers are
"the only professionals routinely denied unemployment when they are not working."
Our state unemployment law allows colleges to claim that when
part-timers are not working they are just like full-timers who are on
paid term or summer breaks and have "reasonable assurance" of returning
to work after their break period is over. Many part-timers are hassled
and many are denied unemployment compensation. So the part-timers who
lose their jobs to create these new full-time positions may not even be
able to collect unemployment.
4. More Full-Timers Will Not Increase Student Success
Section 5 of 2ESSB 5194, entitled "Tenure-Track Faculty," says
"The legislature recognizes that student outcomes and
success, especially for first generation, underserved students, may be
significantly improved by increasing the number of full-time faculty at
community and technical colleges."
This statement is false. If it were true, the Northwest
Commission on Colleges and Universities would have yanked the colleges'
accreditation decades ago since part-timers teach nearly half of all the
courses and outnumber the full-timers by two to one. There is no
credible evidence that more full-timers will increase student retention
or make students graduate at a faster rate.
Fifteen years ago, the AFT itself funded a seriously flawed
study that purported to show that student retention and graduation rates
were higher at colleges that use fewer part-timers.
For decades Doug Collins has been an adjunct instructor of
English as a Second Language at South Seattle College. He explained the
flaws of this research in a letter he wrote to KUOW's Ross Reynolds in
2007:
"When assessing graduation rates, Jacoby did not statistically
segregate evening students from daytime students. This is a big
oversight, because evening classes are overwhelmingly taught by PT
instructors, and because evening students are more likely to have FT
jobs or other daytime obligations themselves while going to school
(and thus have a harder time graduating on time). The
FT/PT labor divide is largely a divide of shifts. The FTers mostly
dominate the day hours, and the PTers overwhelmingly dominate the
evening and other less-desired hours."
5. 2ESSB 5194 Will Increase the Number of Full-Time Union Members
The bill will increase the number of full-time members to the
two faculty unions (AFT and WEA), who have been losing members and money
since the U.S. Supreme Court's Janus decision (2018) outlawed "agency
shop" contracts, whereby workers had to either become members and pay
dues or pay a nearly identical representation fee to the union. Unions
can no longer force non-members to pay them fees.
All full-timers tend join the unions and they pay more in dues
because their salaries are so much higher. Prior to the Janus
decision, 90% of part-timers refused to join the unions where there was
no agency shop contract forcing them to join or pay a fee.
6. WA Legislature Has Abandoned Its Commitment to Equality for the Part-Timers
From 1996 until 2009, the legislature allocated $50 million
solely to increase part-time faculty salaries, but stopped with the
great recession. If there is any money left in this year's budget, it
should go "solely to increasing pay and related benefits for part-time
faculty," as every budget did between 1996 and 2009.
Not only will 2ESSB force hundreds of part-timers to lose
their jobs, it will do nothing about the huge pay disparity between the
part-timers and the full-timers. It seeks to spend $16.6 million in the
next biennium to create 200 full-time positions.
In 2009 the legislature also stopped funding incremental step
raises for the community and technical college faculty. While many
full-timers have seen their increments funded by local collective
bargaining, many part-timers have not because two-thirds of the unions
have failed to bargain any increments for their part-timers.
Despite several decades of representation by the AFT
Washington and the WEA, two-thirds of part-timers are not eligible for
incremental raises. Only 50% of them receive either health or retirement
benefits. They are barred from working even full-time so as to keep
them from qualifying for tenure and they do not receive paid
sabbaticals. They are not paid for summers and term breaks and often are
denied unemployment compensation on the bogus grounds that they have
job security they do not have.
If there is any money in the state budget, it should go to
increasing part-time faculty salaries, which average about $20,000 for
teaching a half-time load. Full-time salaries average $60,000 a year,
though many earn much more by teaching overtime. At last count, the pay
disparity was $132 million per biennium; it surely has gone even higher
by now.
Please do not pass a bill that will not raise part-time
salaries and cause hundreds of loyal part-time professors to lose their
jobs.
Cordially,
Keith Hoeller, Ph.D.
Co-founder (with Teresa Knudsen), Washington Part-Time Faculty Association
Editor,
Equality for Contingent Faculty: Overcoming the Two-Tier System
Seattle and Spokane, WA
