We are the Service Employees International Union,
an organization of more than 2.1 million members
united by the belief in the dignity and worth of
workers and the services they provide and dedicated
to improving the lives of workers and their families
and creating a more just and humane society.
- SEIU mission statement
The Coalition of Academic Labor:
Working towards improving the quality of academic jobs and higher education standards
"[M]any large universities are actually complex businesses with a net worth in the billions and operating budgets in the hundreds of millions. The best way for employees to deal with such a large business is through unionization, which promotes not only solidarity but also provides the power of collective bargaining."
- Kip Lornell, Adjunct Professor, George Washington University
In response to growing inequality on campus including near-poverty wages with no benefits, adjunct faculty at American University voted to join SEIU Local 500. More than 1,000 adjuncts will now have a collective voice with the union.
"This is a major step in reforming higher education, not just at American University but across the country," said Mark Plane, an adjunct in the anthropology department at American university.
Increasingly, adjuncts see forming a union as the best way to achieve a path to the middle class in the face of low compensation and declining working conditions.
- Adjunct faculty make up more than half of all college teachers nationally.
- Most work part time for very low wages with no benefits, job security, administrative support or academic rights.
- At American University, an adjunct with a Ph.D. teaching three classes a semester could make as little as $18,000 a year.
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