The Adjunct’s Mandate

Inside Higher Ed: The Adjuncts’ Mandate

By Gregory Zobel

The recent reports on academic labor by the American Federation of Teachers and Modern Language Association are great news. The great news is not the information the reports present. They offer little that is new or heartening. Instead, they echo what most adjuncts and many academic labor activists already know: Exploitation of contingent academic laborers is growing in scale. Activists, organizers, and administrators can and will jockey over exact percentages in pay difference, whether or not graduate student labor counts as just-in-time labor, and the precise impact adjunct exploitation has upon pay rates, tenure, and the quality of learning at colleges and universities. Exact percentages are important, but they are not vital. Most essential — the larger picture — is that more adjuncts are being hired, exploited, and abused at more community colleges and universities around the United States than ever before. The great news is the presence, timing, and potential application of these reports.

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