Contract Reached at Emerson College

After more than two years of negotiations, the Affiliated Faculty of Emerson College, a local AAUP chapter representing part-time faculty at Emerson College in Boston, settled its first collective bargaining agreement. The four-year agreement, which institutes a health care benefit for some faculty and raises salaries, brings part-time faculty at Emerson closer to the Association's recommendation that contingent faculty members should receive comparable compensation for comparable work. The Association's recent policy statement Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession discusses the negative effects of the increased use of contingent faculty appointments on academic freedom, undergraduate education, and academic collegiality.

Salary provisions of the agreement took effect in fall 2003, and the remaining provisions will take effect next fall after ratification by faculty and trustees. Under the agreement, parttime instructors will be paid according to the number of courses they have taught at Emerson, and the college will pay 50 percent of the health insurance premiums for instructors who have taught at least sixteen classes and who are currently teaching the maximum course load of two classes a semester. The administration also dropped a demand that instructors accept less pay for classes enrolling fewer than ten students.

While the final contract includes some provisions objectionable to the chapter-notably one prohibiting parttime professors from supporting the full-time professors in the event of a strike-the chapter is pleased to have the contract settled after long and grueling negotiations that followed a long fight for union recognition, says David Akiba, a photography instructor and a member of the chapter's negotiating team.

Akiba credits student activism with helping to persuade the administration to settle. Emerson students and faculty, along with other area faculty and activists, participated in an AAUPsupported public education event in October. Akiba also observes that the administration, which is engaged in a dispute with the union representing full-time professors, may have needed some good news on the labor front.