And You Thought Wal-Mart Employees Had it Bad

Imagine working for the same institution for thirty years, always earning below minimum wage, never getting any benefits whatsoever, then being let go without notice, without an explanation, without a severance package or a retirement fund or even a $.50 pen from Staples as a souvenir.

You think Wal-Mart employees are exploited?

What if I told you that all over this country, major institutions created and sustained with a mission to pursue the betterment of mankind, colleges and universities that sit on Billion Dollar endowments are using the current economic crisis to further enrich themselves at the expense of the meager livelihood of long-time faculty? That at the same time as they claim to be the guardians of knowledge and the champions of the arts, they treat their faculty to the legal and financial equivalent of what migrant day laborers earn by standing outside Home Depot?

Freeway Flyers; aka "adjunct professors", aka "teaching professionals". They're the dirty little secret of universities and colleges all around the United States. They're the PhDs with decades of teaching experience, award-winning artists, published authors whose names and reputations draw students to the universities, whose work justifies the $50,000/year tuition, raises the million-Dollar donations, earns the sought after rankings in USA Today's annual poll.

In exchange for all that, they are hired only on a part-time basis, made to sign a pledge that they will not work more than twenty hours a week and will not -- not now, not ever -- have a claim to health or retirement or any other kind of benefits, not even a parking pass. That they are "at will" employees who can be let go at any time, for any reason. Their salaries are so meager, they have to teach two, three, sometimes five classes a semester, at five different universities, just to pay their rent. That's why they're called Freeway Flyers. One writer I knew taught for twenty years at a Southern California college with more money than the GNP of a small country. He was paid so little, he had to supplement his income by working the graveyard shift at airport gift shops. He was the author of one of the biggest literary novels of the 20th century; when he died, his family couldn't afford to bury him. Another guy -- a teacher of mine from the days when I was a student of writing -- drove four hours each way to teach the same class for twenty-seven years. He made something near $3,000 a semester. He was recently let go because the school could take advantage of the rising unemployment rates to hire a younger person for less than $3,000.

I could go on, but it's too depressing.

Why do these college do this? Because they can. Because they have gotten away with it for decades and are even more likely to do so now that the times are hard. Without a union, each one of these professors is up against a Goliath with a bureaucracy that's reminiscent of a third-world government, in-house attorneys and outside law-firms at its disposal, and two or three other PhDs waiting in line for his job in case he dares complain or ask for more money. Even in cases where they know they're breaking federal labor laws, the colleges use their formidable resources to defeat the rare individual who's foolish enough to complain.

Aren't the heads of these colleges ashamed of the exploitation? Wouldn't they want to do the right thing even if they don't have to?

I've asked many of them these questions, especially recently. One of them was a former peace corps volunteer. Their answers are short and scripted: "Of course we want to do the right thing; but only when possible." His colleague, another dean, lamented openly the fact that out of every professor on their payroll, there was one who could not be let go or forced to work for half her usual salary because that one, unfortunately, had a contract. Not that anyone's unhappy with the professor's work, mind you. They just don't like paying more than they have to.

Palmam qui meruit ferat -- Let whoever earns the palm bear it. It's one of those phrases that universities like to carve into the stone facades of their libraries and research facilities. Only it's quite likely that around the colleges you and I all know or have heard of, the person who's bearing the palm isn't really the one who's earned it.

Comments

[Fabini]

I have a personal, direct connection to this subject. I am no longer in academia, although I hover on its fringes like a laid-off auto worker on the poor side of town.

Today I advise Post-Docs (people who have received a Doctorate in their field) look for temporary work until they can find something permanent. There is nothing permanent, only one-year contract jobs, "post-doc positions". This has become demoralizing for them and me.

We, the United States of America, are in a holding pattern when it comes to education. We are no longer progressive. We are no longer the leader. The longer we stay in this holding pattern, the more we fall behind.

Teacher salaries are certainly one component of this problem. So is the "executive class" culture that has permeated academia and corporate America. The executives have placed themselves above all others in their organizations: workers, teachers, students, consumers. We have a whole culture to change.

[ArdentV]

And these are the same universities that will expend millions for a football coach, recruit semi-literates to play for "old ivy" and create all sorts of hell for the staff member who sets academic standards for the mastodons that sometimes deign to attend class. Perhaps an extreme example, but it happens. And if the student or student athlete complains, they are always right and the faculty (adjunct or otherwise) has to adapt. Admittedly there are some terrific instructors in many of our colleges but they don't bring in the "soft bucks" and they don't fill stadiums. Oh, well, I think our skewed sense of values has resulted in our problems of today. Will we learn from them? One can only hope.

[1201SLD]

"a teacher ... drove four hours each way to teach the same class for twenty-seven years. He made something near $3,000 a semester."

Not a math teacher, I hope.

Either the class met only a few times each semester or there is some flawed judgment here.

Eight hours of travel (300-400 miles?) plus class time is a very tiring full day; add prep, review, and evaluation and it's two days. If the class met three times a week during the eighteen-week semester, that makes 108 days worked, and then there's the cost of the 54 round-trips. Maybe this made sense 30 years ago, but to have continued doing this for $3,000 would be foolhardy. At then-prevailing IRS mileage rates, just the cost of driving 20,000 miles a semester more than wipes out the $3,000.

There must be much more here than meets the eye, or the calculator.

[johnie2xs]

How come you're not working on Wall Street? I take that back. You MUST be working on Wall Street!

[JScott]

'They're the PhDs with decades of teaching experience, award-winning artists, published authors whose names and reputations draw students to the universities....'

Ya lost me here why are these folks are 'adjunct professors' in the first place.

If they are PhD's why would they wanna do this, are they just not good teachers?

If they are award winning artists and published authors didn't they already get their 'rewards' & etc.?

Someone explain this to me.

[drkazmd65]

You appear to be laboring under the false impression that 'Awards' = "$$$ & permanent employment"

One of the guys I used to work with helped clone and characterize the Green Flourescent Protein that 3 other scientists got the Nobel Prize for this past year. He's a smart guy, if a bit socially awkward. But he is now working as a driver for a Car Sales company after he left here to take a contract job, got cut at the end of the contract, and had to do something to make a living.

To get ahead in academia (one of the reasons I chose another path) you usually have to be good, or lucky, or know all of the right people (preferably all of the above) to really make it. Award winning so DOES NOT equal financial and job security.

That explain it for you?

[LeLoup]

Has any union try to help the adjuncts to organize?

[DuganS1]

That would put universities is worse financial trouble and result in another heft increase to tuition.

[dexxjones]

actually i thought walmart employees had it bad until i actually spoke to one. she has worked there for twelve years and it quite happy.

walmart isnt the problem- its a corporation doing what its supposed to- being a sociopathic entity with the sole focus as profits. corporations are SUPPOSED to be reigned in by regulation.

the problem is that the people we hire to run out country are traitorous, greedy bastards. most of them should, by any moral measure be in prison cells for allowing corporations to run amok and selling this country out to the highest bidder.

walmart is the symptom. this sad sack government is the disease.

[PartTimeHero]

"a corporation doing what its supposed to- being a sociopathic entity with the sole focus as profits"

You are so right, and this is the biggest and not yet talked about problem that has cost our country's current meltdown. Why else do the majority of job in this country for the middle class and down not paying enough for that worker to live on? And the newly created jobs paying less and less?

Those are just two points. I know we will find many, many more that lead back to the corporation caring for nothing but its own profit; regardless of how that profit gained affects the people, environment, and economy around it.

[reliefisontheway]

Thanks Gina, you hit the nail on the head.

This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. Last year I substituted for a tenured professor with a six figure salary. Know what I was paid? $9000.00. But I did get a parking pass, whoopee...

I took the job because they knew that a) there were a dozen others who would do it for that money and b) I had to survive.

This was in a department with a budget of millions.

Unregarded, underpaid, and treated like scum. Oh, for the adjunct's life!

Don't get me started on the other dirty secret of our supposedly liberal university system: rampant age discrimination.

[robivecchi]

TAs do not have it much better. There are very few places in this country one can survive on 6k a year.

[drkazmd65]

At least TAs in science departments do a bit better. I was bringing in the 'Kingly' sum of $1000/month as a Big Ten University in the mid 1990s. The TAs in the Big 12 University Agriculture Department I worked in during the late early 200s were making ~$18K/year.

Those are better numbers, but they are still a relative pittance for the amount of work the TAs do. And yes - the Humanities Grad Students have it much, much worse.

[Thorn]

Do you mean "Wal-Mart," expert?

[Whatnot27]

I keep expecting the misspelling to be fixed. Not that Walmart, eh Wal-Mart, knows its name though:

http://theslot.blogspot.com/2008/12/is-wal-mart-now-walmart.html

[Hydra8]

And they say we should do away with unions? Unions are bad for the economy, and are causing all this financial mess, and unions ask too much money for wages!
Yeah right.

Just like our friends the Shelby's and Corkers of the GOP who shafted the automaker loan, our good old friends of the foreign automakers in their states are planning on putting american workers out on the street. These are the right wing nut bars that would have us all working for .20 cents an hour -like they do in China.

Unions prevent the exploitation of the working class or we would still be back to the "please sir..can I have more" routine.