A Contract year with a Union without Solidarity
There is a literal class warfare at Northeastern, within the faculty and union, between tenure-track faculty and instructors.
During the recent strike, non-tenure track faculty, at greater risk to themselves, maintained solidarity with tenure-track faculty and others and went out on strike with them. The payback came when we all returned to work and the faculty senate denied instructors any voting rights anywhere within the university.
There was nothing new in this disenfranchisement. For years tenure-track union members have used non-tenure tack employees to swell the numbers within the union and then ignored their needs.
When several of us demanded at a union meeting that the union give consideration to non-tenure track faculty, we were told by the past union president that ours was a majority union and he could not present such demands to the majority (that is tenure-track faculty) or the administration. As he informed the instructors’ representative, those faculty members were just the caboose on the train. So much for solidarity.
Well, times have changed; and unless the union can heal the rift within its ranks, it will not be able to bargain with any strength for any one of its current demands. The administration is well aware that we are a deeply divided union.
However, if solidarity cannot be achieved, then we must reconsider the statement that ours is a majority union and realize that the majority of union voting members are no longer tenure-track faculty. Instructors constitute a majority of the voting members in the union. There are also support professionals in the union with whom they might unite to attain an even greater majority.
Instructors have been contributing members of this university for decades. They remain underpaid, exploited and without adequate protection, working as they do in fear not only of what administrators can do to them, but also of what their supposed colleagues have done. Were they to gain a decent living wage so that they would not have to supplement their income by teaching hither and yon, were they to receive the respect due them as well the protection any university faculty member requires, then we can expect them to be better committed to this university.
Solidarity now or no successful bargaining later.
Harry White
Tenured Full Professor
Eng. Dept.