Bargaining Session 6 | September 1, 2022
Last week, our union’s lead negotiator, Annie Lee Larson, presented a compensation proposal that would overhaul divisive compensation structures, establish a pay floor, dramatically expand longevity increases, and require annual cost of living increases for all part-time faculty at the New School.
“Our members, many of whom are in the room today, have not had a pay increase since 2018. [The current] contract is from 2014. We need a fair contract and we need to be paid appropriately now. We don’t have the benefit of time. We’ve been living under this wage structure for too long. We have a sense of urgency for our members who need to receive their compensation now.”
Showing support for the proposal were at least 60 part-time faculty members, adorned with stunning poker faces and rousing union blue backgrounds. It was great to see everyone’s solidarity around the new pay proposal!
“We are paid poverty wages.”
Annie kicked off the almost four-hour long session with an impactful presentation on the ways the New School has imposed financial precarity onto its part-time faculty:
Part-time faculty teaching a full course load of six courses earn as little as $23,000 while the average Associate Professor at The New School earns $108,000 to teach the same six courses. In addition to full-time faculty, many academic student workers in SENS also earn more than part-time faculty for teaching the same courses.
Part-time faculty compensation is based on “contact hours” - the time spent teaching in the classroom, and does not truly reflect the countless out-of-class hours required to successfully teach a course. When all the working hours are factored in, faculty members, in some cases, earn as little as $15/hour — minimum wage.
Per The New School’s tuition and fees website, a BA/BFA student pays $5,430 in tuition for a 3-credit class. That’s nearly $100,000 in total for a class of 18. Typically, the instructor is paid $4,500, less than 5% of the total tuition charged for the course.
Annie went on to present the bargaining committee’s compensation proposal, which was diligently developed in conversation with faculty from departments across the New School. The proposal outlined:
A standardized base rate per course, instead of compensation only for contact hours – based on the Modern Language Association of America (MLA) recommendation on Minimum Per-Course Compensation for Part-Time Faculty – with a standardized base rate of $14,500 for a 45 contact hour course and adjustments for courses with higher or lower contact hours.
An annual 5% pay increase added to the annual rate of inflation (CPI-U) for each year.
Expanded longevity increases of 5% every five years with a provision for retroactive increases.
A one-time payment of $3,500, equivalent to pandemic “financial recognition” bonuses the university gave to full-time faculty and non-union staff earlier this year.
Increased compensation for administrative hour, senior thesis advising, and independent study.
Increased compensation for training and equipment required to teach online courses.
Expanded additional duties rates with compensation increasing to $200/hour for most tasks.
Increased compensation for co-taught and paired courses.
No more excuses
The university presented 6 counters to the following proposals, one of which was incomplete:
Article II - Bargaining Unit Info
Article VI - Bulletin Boards
Article VII - Non-discriminiation
Article XI - Labor Management Committee
Article XXIV - Payday (incomplete)
New Article - Meeting Space
Each counter proposal read like a refusal to think beyond the confines of past practice and dream big about ways the New School can do better by its part-time faculty. A common refrain from Jennifer throughout each was that the New School doesn’t “do” what the union is proposing. Refusing to consider structures or practices that diverge from institutional norms, when those exact norms are what contribute to the immense precarity of 87% of the university’s teaching staff, is a clear signal the New School has no intention of improving part-time faculty working conditions.
One stark example involved shifting the way part-time faculty receive payment for payroll errors. Currently, the New School uses payment cards rather than checks or direct deposit to this end. These cards are notoriously difficult to activate and use, leaving faculty with a feeling of uncertainty over being able to access their hard-earned wages. On top of that, they are administered by a third party, relinquishing the university of any responsibility for their proper implementation while forcing faculty into a relationship with an unfamiliar entity in order to be paid - all to correct a university error.
The union’s proposal for Article XXIV: Payday would provide an option for mailed checks in addition to the payment cards. Jennifer vehemently refused to accept this change, stating that, “No matter what, we don’t issue paper checks so we can’t agree to your proposal.” When Annie probed further, asking why this could not be implemented as a new practice, Jennifer again asserted that “we don’t use paper checks,” this time adding that this practice “stems from the New School’s commitment to sustainability.” Union members struggled to maintain their poker faces.
Claiming environmental considerations as a reason not to implement a simple practice - replacing plastic payment cards with paper checks - that would greatly increase the accessibility of part-time faculty’s pay is unacceptable. The New School claims to be the university of the future, committed to emerging technologies, equitability, sustainability, and innovation. Their entire branding is built on it. So then why is their lead negotiator using their commitment to sustainability as an excuse to stay firmly rooted in the past?
At the end of the day, the university’s counter proposals are just excuses to continue treating part-time faculty as second-class citizens. Our union is asking for a radical shift in the systems and practices that shape the New School’s part-time faculty working conditions. Unfortunately, the administration is insistent on keeping things the way they’ve always been. As one bargaining team member aptly put it in our bargaining debrief,
“This language that Jennifer uses about ‘there’s no alternative, we can’t do this’, that’s ridiculous. There is an alternative, they’re just not considering it.”