March 28: Another Fellow, Retire to Bedlam, Union Talks

"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who overheard him:  "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas.  I'll retire to Bedlam."

Scrooge on Bob Cratchit, his eternally abused employee.  Scrooge can't fathom how Bob, on the paltry salary Scrooge pays him, can even contemplate celebrating Christmas.  Considering the size of Bob's family and Bob's wages, Scrooge is justified in questioning Bob's sanity.  Of course, Scrooge is a major factor in the Cratchit family's squalor.

When I sat down to clear out my university e-mail inbox this morning, I looked at some communiques from the person sitting in on the contract negotiations for the adjuncts at the school.  We adjuncts are new members of the professors' union.  (When I say new, I mean new.  After an almost four or five year process, the adjuncts finally voted to join the local chapter of AAUP last semester.)  Now, perhaps I was being naive.  I thought the university administrators would recognize how underpaid and under-compensated the adjuncts truly are and would have no problem with a few concessions (salary bump, family tuition wavers--basically stuff that all other employees of the university receive on a consistent basis).

Well, the e-mails were quite an education.  The administration is not interested in salary increases.  In fact, it left the adjuncts completely out of the salary-side of the negotiations, which could mean a pay cut for us.  The "benefits" the administration offered were basically the benefits the adjuncts already had before we joined the union (even taking away a few of our current perks).  So, at this point, the adjuncts stand to gain absolutely nothing from the contract negotiations.

I think I might be a little too much like Bob Cratchit, who accepts his employer's abuse as a matter of course.  In some crazy way, Bob is even grateful to Scrooge.  That's messed up.  However, I'm beginning to feel a little like Bob in relation to the university.  I don't even get a Christmas goose from the school.

If you can't tell, I'm a little pissed this morning.  I'm not even sure the professors will support the adjuncts' cause that much.  The vote to include us sparked some pretty intense debate among the full-timers.  They were worried about losing their piece of the pie, if you get my meaning.  Most of them weren't willing to share their side of the sandbox.  OK, enough bad metaphors.  You get the idea.

Therefore, I'm much less optimistic about the whole future of the adjuncts at the university.  I'm beginning to believe the only thing we gained by joining the professors' union is the obligation to walk a picket line if the professors don't get what they want.

Saint Marty'll retire to Bedlam.

Ready to join the picket line?