Brandeis Democrats and the Brandeis Labor Coalition have openly declared their support for adjunct and non-tenure track faculty members moving to create a union. The two clubs have hosted events on campus and worked to raise awareness of Brandeis Faculty Forward, the faculty group working toward unionization. Both clubs have posted and distributed flyers made by Faculty Forward and worked to earn signatures for an online petition of support on the Brandeis Faculty Forward website.

BLC hosted a teach-in event last March to educate about the union effort and has been tabling in the Shapiro Campus Center to raise support, while Brandeis Democrats hosted a teach-in last Wednesday with Prof. Steven Plunkett (ENG) and Marcelle Grair, a community organizer for the Service Employees International Union Local 509. SEIU Local 509 is the union that will represent Brandeis faculty if a union is formed.

Plunkett wrote in an email to the Justice saying, “Most students I’ve met seem to appreciate the fact that teaching conditions are learning conditions — that their own education suffers as a result of their professors’ lack of employment security. The general response is one of surprise and concern for themselves, their professors, and the future of the university.”

In an interview with the Justice, BLC members Tamar Lyssy ’16 and Aaron Goodwin ’18 said that BLC first found out about the faculty union movement last winter from an email by Prof. Gordon Fellman (SOC). Lyssy said that BLC supports Brandeis Faculty Forward because the club supports faculty and staff in whatever they choose to do, adding that they are “here to show student support and to get students more involved in [the unionization issue], because it’s easier for other students to talk to students.”

Annie Averill ’17, the public relations director for Brandeis Democrats, wrote in an email to the Justice that “Dems has formally declared support for adjunct faculty unionization on campus and we are excited to help in these efforts. ... We believe it is their right to unionize to receive fair pay and benefits for their work.”

While neither club will have speakers at the Speak Out on Tuesday, both will be attending and have declared their support for the event.

Fellman, a tenured professor, wrote in an email to the Justice, “I think it is powerfully immoral that 70% of faculty in the US now are adjunct. They get paid roughly what McDonalds and Walmart workers get paid and usually have no pension or health benefits.” Though Brandeis does offer adjuncts health benefits, according to Fellman, they are paid roughly a quarter to a third of what tenured professors are paid. Executive Director for Integrated Media Bill Schaller did not respond to requests for information on the average pay grades of adjunct and tenured faculty by press time, though he did say, “We believe in the rights of employees to decide for themselves in a secret ballot election as to whether or not they wish to be represented by a union.”

The American Association of University Professors reports that tenured faculty receive an average salary of $84,303 while NPR reports that adjunct faculty typically earn between $20,000 and $25,000 annually.

At the Brandeis Democrats’s teach-in on Wednesday, Plunkett said that he was paid $4,800 per section of the UWS courses he taught as a graduate student, and he usually taught two sections. “There’s sort of short-term hiring without a lot of certainty, and so that’s the reason I’ve been involved in the contract faculty organizing here....It’s very hard to plan for a future being an academic when you’re not sure if you’re going to have work the following semester.”

Plunkett also noted that while more and more universities are hiring only contract or adjunct faculty, this is not necessarily meant to be malicious, only “because that’s an easy way to save money.” He added that adjunct faculty cannot participate in the University’s decision-making process due to concerns about job security, noting that “it is a consequence in a democratic system … [that] if there’s a party that’s not able to participate in the discussion that determines how the institution is set up, that’s the party that might bear an undue burden.”

Grair, an SEIU organizer, urged students at the Teach-In to organize letter-writing campaigns and rallies and to talk to Boston media organizations about the unionization efforts and said that it is critical for students to maintain pressure on a University administration for union contract talks to be successful.

“You are the voices that the University listens to,” Plunkett elaborated. “Where we’re considered an expense ... they’re very interested in keeping students satisfied with the educations you receive. You ensure their continued existence as a university.”

If a union is formed, it will represent both adjunct professors, who are hired by the individual courses they teach, and contract professors, who sign on to a single or multi-semester contracts with no offer of tenure or job security after the contract ends.

Plunkett said at the Teach-In that he believes graduate students hired at a flat rate to teach a course will also be eligible, though final decision on eligibility will come from the National Labor Relations Board. A majority vote of 50 percent plus one of those eligible is necessary to form a union, after at least 30 percent of those who would be in the bargaining unit sign union authorization cards to bring the issue to the NLRB’s attention.

Brandeis Faculty Forward has not brought the issue to a vote yet.