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Service Employees International Union’s Adjunct Action campaign, a national adjunct organizing effort, released this week a new report on academic labor. "Crisis at the Boiling Point" is based on input from part-time faculty members at 238 colleges and universities, plus 40 in-depth interviews with adjuncts. Some 16 percent of respondents are paid less than minimum wage, based on the number of hours they actually work, while many more make less than $15 per hour. Some 40 percent of respondents said they work 40 hours per week or more, despite being considered part-time employees. About 18 percent said they’d received a paycheck late within the last year.
The report, which was presented to Department of Labor officials this weekend at an SEIU meeting in Boston, also makes a series of recommendations, including the broadening of federal and state labor protections for contingent faculty. The report also calls for more institutional “transparency” regarding how much of the budget is spent on instruction. Adjunct Action says that adjuncts can use the Office Hours tool on its website to determine how many hours they work, in order to apply for federal benefits, such as loan forgiveness for educators, which they’ve historically been denied.
