From Mary Lucille Hays—Senior Lecturer, English.

I can’t really blame folks who wonder if union dues are worth it if they haven’t seen first-hand what the union can do for us. My union dues run about $50 a pay check, or $600 and some change every year. I suppose I could buy a pretty sweet bicycle with that money, but I have some perspective on what the union does for me, having been involved since the advent of the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Coalition (NTFC). In fact, this summer, as I was in my office completing my biannual ritual of cleaning, organizing, and ridding out drawers for the Fall semester, I found my offer letter from 2006.

The first thing I noticed was my salary, which was less than 1/3 of my annual pay today. I was shocked. I remember not being paid much, but was it really so little? Then I realized that my offer letter was just for the Spring semester, not for a whole year. Back in the bad old days, we would find out at the very end of classes, sometimes not until we were figuring final grades, whether we had a job for the following semester. 

Most of the time, I did have a job, but one May I got the news that I would not be staffed in the Fall. They then called me a few days before the semester to offer me classes, but that was not until after I spent the entire summer looking for work. And even when they did give me notice, I remember the stress of trying to teach my students while juggling the anxiety of not knowing whether I’d be here next semester. Of course, my students come first, so I did my best to serve them, but teaching felt like it was running parallel to my pressing worries about employment. My attention was divided. Should I grade papers or write another cover letter? Should I do class prep or scour the job listings? And even if I did get to teach the next semester, could I make ends meet? Should I moonlight as a waitress or a bartender? Meeting with students, I’m sure that sometimes they could tell that my mind was elsewhere.

With NTFC, we get, at minimum, year-long contracts. If we work here full-time for five consecutive years, our contract gives us a year’s notice before we can be let go. And now, correcting for an annual, rather than a semester salary, I still make almost twice what I made then. I feel more relaxed, with teaching as my main focus. I’m sure I’m more centered in the classroom and have really come to love my chosen career. To put it in trade union terms–it’s easier to provide good services when you don’t have the stress and worry of sub-par wages and unfair labor practices.

All of this to say that I’m proud to support my union by paying union dues. And as for that new bike? I think I’ll just save up with the higher wages I get now thanks to the NTFC.

Photo Credit: California Teachers Association

From Dorothee Schneider, Teaching Associate Professor– History, Retired

After teaching American history for more than three decades, a lot of what I teach in the classroom refers to events I actually experienced:  Watergate, Ronald Reagan’s “It’s Morning in America,” and Bill Clinton’s “I Feel Your Pain.”  I watched the towers of the World Trade Center fall with my students while teaching about immigration.  But, like students at that moment, I felt that I was a witness, an onlooker of events over which I had no control.  I could live through history, I could understand history, but it never occurred to me that I could make history.

In the early months of 2014, a small group of colleagues and I began to work with union organizers from the American Federation of Teachers to find out if our campus was ready for a union of lecturers, instructors, and other faculty not on the tenure track. Our salaries were nearly frozen or even cut. Employment security did not exist. Most of us had no opportunity for advancement.   As it turned out, hundreds of colleagues were ready to sign up for the cause.  But we also encountered much anxiety: What if the supervisor found out? Could you be fired? Deported?  What if the promised pay increase did not materialize? It was hard work to move our colleagues beyond fear and insecurity.

On May 15, 2014 we filed for union recognition with the Illinois State Labor Education Board. After a year-long lawsuit by the University administration contesting the legitimacy of our union (the case went all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court), we won recognition. Nearly two years and two strikes later, we ratified our first contract in May of 2016.  The rest is, well, history.  

This time I wasn’t a witness. I actually helped to make it happen.
My colleagues and I made this history ourselves.  

Our historic win did not eliminate all the work-related problems among our ranks, but we made a serious dent and continue to push for a better future for ourselves in contract negotiations and organizing.  

If we don’t just want to be bystanders, we have to continue making history.  It is hard work. But so very much worth it. 

Dorothee Schneider