Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

University of South Florida Adjuncts File for Union Election

  • 04/21/17

TAMPA, FL – Non-tenure track, part-time faculty at the University of South Florida (USF) announced recently that they filed for a union election to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as part of the national Faculty Forward campaign (seiufacultyforward.org) to raise standards in higher education.

"We're forming a union so we can earn a living wage at the jobs we love," says Jeanette Abrahamsen, an adjunct who teaches Mass Communications. "When we invest in each other the way we invest in our students, we'll create an environment where qualified teachers can keep their jobs and earn what we deserve."

USF contingent faculty continue to build support while taking an important step toward voting to join colleagues at Hillsborough Community College, who voted overwhelmingly to form a union last November. Adjuncts at the University of Chicago, Tufts, Georgetown and dozens of other universities have joined SEIU in the past three years. More than a quarter of USF's faculty members are part-time, contingent faculty, up from 16 percent in 2010.

"I want a union because I believe in fairness and justice," says Patty McCabe-Remmell, an adjunct who teaches professional and technical writing. "We are, after all, professionals. Pay and benefit parity would be a nice way to recognize that," she says, noting that graduate assistants and tenure-track faculty at USF, who are represented by unions, receive healthcare benefits.

Momentum is building. Together, faculty from more than 50 schools, coast to coast, are building support to form their union with SEIU, and creating a movement to address the crisis in higher education and the declining working standards that leave both students and faculty behind.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is home to more than 120,000 faculty, graduate student employees and other campus workers who believe in the power of joining together on the job to win higher wages and benefits and to create better communities by fighting for a more just society and an economy that works for all of us, not just corporations and the wealthy.

Featured

  • Round Rock ISD Completes New Early College High School

    Round Rock ISD near Austin, Texas, recently announced that construction is complete on a new, 46,500-square-foot campus for Early College High School, according to a news release. The new facility will allow the school’s students and staff to move from portables into a permanent building and increase its enrollment to 500.

  • College of the Desert Hits Construction Milestone on New Campus

    College of the Desert recently announced that the construction of its new Palm Springs Campus in Palm Springs, Calif., recently reached a major construction milestone, according to a news release. The college is partnering with general contractor C.W. Driver Companies, which recently “topped out” the facility by placing the final beam in its structure.

  • Stanford Completes Construction on Graduate School of Education Facility

    Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., recently announced the end of construction on a new home for its Graduate School of Education, according to a news release. The university partnered with McCarthy Building Companies on the 160,000-square-foot project, which involved two major renovations and one new construction effort.

  • Surging Demand for Student Housing Fuels Major Campus Investment Opportunities

    University leaders throughout the U.S. are accelerating plans to modernize and expand student housing as enrollment stabilizes and demand for on-campus living rebounds. Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that total postsecondary enrollment is projected to grow through the end of the decade, with undergraduate enrollment alone expected to increase by more than 8 percent by 2030.