Improving Job Security/Ending Contingency

Part-time/adjunct faculty, full-time nontenure-track faculty and graduate assistants now comprise close to 70 percent of higher education faculty. Too many of these jobs are underpaid, are undervalued and lack the basic security and benefits of full-time work.

Combined with overall disinvestment in public higher education, these working conditions make it much harder for college faculty and staff to meet the needs of students and ensure that all students have the support they need to truly thrive.

Our colleges and universities must provide high-quality, sustainable jobs for all who work on campus. All faculty and staff must be recognized as vital pieces of the campus community; they must be invited to participate in the shared governance process, be compensated fairly and have real, meaningful job security. Organizing for a voice on the job remains one of the best ways to ensure faculty and staff have a voice in the communities where they work.

The AFT believes improving job security for faculty and staff and working toward the ending of contingency is the path forward to creating a better system of higher education. Job security is the best, if not the only, way to safeguard intellectual and academic freedom for all those working in our community colleges, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and four-year colleges and universities.