There is a debate going around on the academic blog-o-sphere about faculty salaries and whether or not TT faculty have a right to complain. As far as I can tell it started over at Tenured Radical’s. When folks found out that TR makes over 107K many said she shouldn’t complain or that they themselves don’t feel the need or the right to complain. You can read a few different views: Historiann, Dr Crazy, another post by TR, Squadratomagico, and undine.
Here’s the thing folks, from the mouth of someone at the bottom of the academic totem pole…(I make 12-14K depending on whether I get the privilege of teaching over the summer.) If Tenured Radical or other full professors in secure positions are willing to unionize or in any way help organize for better working conditions in academia, I welcome their help. I would be happy to discuss with them what organizing priorities the union should have. Although raises for full faculty wouldn’t be my first priority, I wouldn’t be opposed to organizing for such raises. Certainly we could all agree to organize in opposition to increasing teaching loads and larger and larger class sizes. Unions filled with grad students and adjuncts are weak compared to unions that also have tenured professors as members. There is a campaign happening now at Crunchy U. to unionize the faculty – adjuncts and TT together. It seems that many TT faculty are reticent to join, despite their Marxist leanings.
If you can’t unionize in your state, maybe it is time to start organizing to change that law. There are lots of workers out there who are in worse positions who could use your help. If you can’t unionize legally, maybe it is time to organize. Maybe we should start talking to our students about the conditions we work under. Faculty and students could be allies in organizing for improved education funding. Civil disobedience could be considered. For that matter, you could do something to help K-12 educators who are struggling under crappy conditions. (Our new roommate is a 1st grade teacher at a low income public school.) Or doing something to help improve the working conditions for preschool teachers. Having well trained (and well paid) preschool teachers would make a huge difference in children’s lives. No one values preschool teachers, yet these are the folks that really need to understand developmental stages and how to provide kids with the foundations to do well in school.
Just don’t expect making change to be easy. I’m just saying.
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November 14, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Belle
Fac Salaries are always going to be contentious (IMHO). There’re the issues of entitlement (tenure) and then there’s the whole adjunct situation. Lump in the ABDs and grad students struggling to finish and find a job, and you have a widely varying population. All too frequently, I hear the voices of people who know nothing of the outside world of employment – those who have had extensive experience inside of the academy and none/limited outside of it. To my cynical (and tenured) ears, it all sounds rather like guild masters bemoaning the lessening of their own privilege even as they participate in and perpetuate the inequities of their own system. Hearing someone who makes twice what I do and teach a fraction of what I do complain about money (without addressing the disparity of privilege) tends to make me… cranky.
November 14, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Seeking Solace
107K a year. Sweet Merciful Crap. That’s insane.
November 15, 2010 at 3:14 am
Leslie M-B
Two posts in one week–fabulous!
In this one, you sound very much like your father’s daughter.
And I agree–we need to work very hard for fair pay across the spectrum, from grad students to adjuncts to tenure-track folks. I don’t think $107K is unreasonable for a prof living where Tenured Radical does, with her profile and expertise, and at her point in her career. (I don’t think it’s low, either, but I’m not happy with the trend of universities not offering even paltry, cost-of-living raises.)
November 15, 2010 at 8:17 am
Breena
Belle – I do think it would difficult for TT faculty to unionize with their teaching assistants because there are conflicting interests there. A very well respected and senior prof in our department told me he wasn’t sure he could support unionization because he felt that faculty should be moving back and forth into administrative jobs and the union would further erode that process. Ideally, I would like to see the faculty deeply involved with administration, but it seems to me that process is already being threatened and faculty are facing administrations that see them as labor, rather than consider their views on the direction of the university.
Anyone who sees their wages eroding while they are being expected to do more and more work will most likely start to complain, no matter how awesome their job is. My point is that we need everyone to get behind improving academic working conditions (and education) at all levels, rather than fighting over who has the right to complain. I love the idealism in your post. I guess I’m still a bit of an idealist about the power of groups of people getting together to organize.
Seeking Solace – I know that sounds like a ton of money, but it isn’t that much when you think about what a doctor or a lawyer makes. It just depends on your perspective.
Leslie – I know this debate is just coming up because a couple of years ago TT folks were willing to take pay freezes and the like without complaining but the budget problems aren’t getting better and now people are getting tired of it. I don’t blame them, but I think folks still have to be sensitive to how it looks. In general TT folks don’t seem to be leading the fight to improve working conditions for all. In fact working conditions for academics have been getting worse for decades and it sometimes seems that folks in TT positions have been doing little to push back against the causalization of the academic work force. Maybe nothing could have been done, but it sometimes seems like folks have been willing to let it slide as long as their own position was safe. Hopefully that will begin to change.
(Maybe I should have just written another post.)