Adjunct professors at Point Park University voted last summer to unionize with United Steelworkers, and a year later, collective bargaining to obtain job security and fair wages have not produced the results they had hoped for. 

On July 25, 2014, 69 percent of voting eligible teachers elected to unionize (172 in favor to 79) in efforts to secure certain benefits that they are currently without. USW organizer and researcher Robin Sowards says there is a “long list” of benefits the instructors are bargaining for. 

“Certainly more job security. We believe students succeed more when there is continuity in faculty. Job security is a key issue,” Sowards said. “This includes a grievance procedure of some kind. If you don’t have a union contract, you can be fired for no reason.” 

Also up for negotiation are what the adjunct faculty members call fair wages. Sowards calls for equal pay for equal work. 

“If you work half the courses of a full time professor, you get half the pay.” 

Adjunct faculty at Point Park are paid, at maximum, $2,727 per course and may teach a maximum of six courses per year. A maximum yearly salary would be $16,362, only a few hundred dollars above the 2013 federal poverty threshold for a single-parent household. A wide majority of professors at Point Park (77 percent) are adjunct faculty, and are hired on a course-by-course basis, and that contract can be terminated at any time. Essentially, adjunct professors are let go and must apply to be re-hired at the end of every semester. 

Adjunct faculty unionization has become an important issue in universities and colleges across Pittsburgh and Allegheny County since Margaret Mary Vojtko, an adjunct French professor at Duquesne University who had recently lost her job, collapsed on her front lawn from a cardiac arrest and died in the hospital two weeks later. Vojtko, 83 at the time of her death, had worked at the university as an adjunct professor for 25 years, and as such, was not entitled to severance pay after her release. The death sparked outrage in the academic community. 

The adjunct faculty at Duquesne have since unionized with USW, though Duquesne appealed their recognition by the National Labor Relations Board and cite religious freedom in their right to not recognize the union. 

Fortunately, the adjunct professors did not face a similar response from the administration of Point Park after they voted to unionize. After the election, Lou Corsaro, Managing Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Point Park, stated, “Today, we learned from the National Labor Relations Board that adjunct faculty voted in favor of United Steel Workers representation. We are pleased that so many adjunct faculty members took the time to make their voices heard on this important issue. We respect the decision made by those eligible to vote and look forward to working with all faculty members to fulfill Point Park’s mission of educating the next generation.” 

Still, Sowards believes the bargaining could take a little while longer. 

“As far as the time frame, that’s hard to know, that depends on how reasonable the administration is willing to be,” Sowards said, “Typically first collective bargaining agreements take a while.” 

However, Sowards said USW was hoping “to resolve this one sometime this year.” 

One student, however, would prefer to have the bargaining wrapped up sooner rather than later. “They do a great job of teaching,” Kristin Blazeyewski, an undecided freshman said. “Let them have what they want.”