i'm not justifying the system. i've repeatedly said that it stinks. class consciousness means that we need a little perspective about what our brothers and sisters actually make and what "we" actually make. and to really look at the different social conditions of our labor. they different. that shouldn't be overlooked. not so we can be grateful that we're better off, but to be honest to ourselves and others. furthermore, there are material reasons why organizing unions is easier among some segments of the labor force. <see, for ex., _Contested Terrain_ Richard Edwards, Harrison and Bluestone's work, as well as Dorothy Cobble's _Dishing it Out_.)
one thing about the structure of the academic career (and the adjunct/TA prob) is that it stinks *the most* for English grads who often have to spend far more time grading. as grad students, we got ourselves a grant for a "writing lab". this meant quite a grading load each wk, with the mandatory load of 40 students in your class. 100 pp of reading/wk, writing assignments each week, plus essays 4 x per semester.
but we thought that was better for our students than objective exams.
what it got us was heavy work loads, some plaques/awards, kudos from the dean and every other dept laughed since our research productivity went way down. so, i'm intimately familiar with the ways in which the English depts and their TAs get the rawest deals.
i took a Critical Theory course in the English dept my first year. great prof, Rosaria Champagne. good mentor. We read Jane Tompkins' Pedagogy of the Distressed. two words: read it. unionize, organize, struggle, but see if you can collaborate also. work together to find ways to lighten the load. you can turn it into committee work and other fluff for your CV. what i mean is this: guest lectures in your specialty. you do it for others, they do it for you. you get to do something you know like the back of your hand, they get a day off from lecturing or leading discussion.
social sciences/humanities grads can work together. work together to create a database of common student errors and corrections: copy, cut, paste, printout for ea. students (save on all that writing). give up some of your authority and use collaborative learning techniques: better pedagogy, lightens your load.
yep, it makes you more efficient for the uni. but then again, you can look at it as ripping them off, too. :)
as i recall some of my work on unionizing, we figured that english grads at Syracuse (the #1 Creative Writing program in the US) rec'd the worst pay even as TAs -- they got a stipend for 20hr wks/36 wks @ $6800. that was the 1995 numbers, it's up to $7300 now.
if you're going to use avg pay rates, then you need to compare hourly to hourly and you need to consider that, on avg, an adjunct does not make the same hourly wage as a housekeeper.
if you're a full time professor at a state university, you are often teaching 3/4 or 4/4. obviously, they don't spend 20 hrs per course. for most of them, that's a base of 12-16 hrs classroom/office hours, then you have to grade and prep for lectures, etc. you generally teach two of same course, reduces your prep time. most of them aren't spending 20 hrs per course
if an adjunct teaches at state unis, my experience is that the pay is typically $2200-2500. if you taught the same schedule, which is said to be what a full timer is supposed to do, then you're earning 15,400-17,500 for 36 weeks worth of work @ 40 hrs/wk. (AVG--includes 2 wks prep for each semester included) you're making ~$10/hr.
you're talking about TAs, too, and the 20 hrs. a week thing is supposed to protect TAs from being asked to teach 2 courses per semester for the same stipend--while they are taking courses. stipends range right now from $7k-$9k, on avg. for 20 hr. per wk for 36 weeks, that's $9.50-$12.20. 3 hrs. in class, 1 hr office time, 16 hrs for grading/prep.
you must look at avgs and hourly rates if you want to comnpare. even at the worst pay i've made it's a far better deal than when i worked as a janitor scrubbing the floor and sink at a seafood delivery company breathing in chlorox and assorted chemicals $5.25/hr. (no ins.)
* as a caterer, i made $6, the boss gave me a raise to $7. as a cook it was 7-$9/hr. the ones who made it to max usually got symbolically fired. (no ins)
* my ex lugged around heavy equipment in 90degree heat all summer for $7.50 an hour. (no ins)
* you can poor tar and shovel gravel around here for $8/hr. (no ins)
* the robocops they hired here after a couple of shooting and holdups make $7/hr risking their lives. (no ins)
* another exbeau slugged around 100 lb sacks of potatoes and carted heavy loads on/off truck and in and out of food storage areas as a delivery truck driver at $10/hr with no overtime pay. minimum req of 50 hrs a week.no bennies, no paid vacations. when he hurt himself, his boss told him to shaddup shuttin' up already. (no ins)
* my wasband makes $35k for a MINIMUM of 65 hrs. week. he cooks for 3 hrs, does the books, delivers coffee and donuts to the professors having meetings, runs the cash reg during lunch, does dishes, does the books. 12-14 hrs a day, with at least 5 hrs on the weekend doing inventory and the books for his weekly report. he runs his ass off every day for just a bit more than $10/hr. he can run catering events on the weekend and make more: $12/hr! if you don't take on the extra events--cash cows for the firm--then you're labeled a slacker and will get demoted or fired in a snap. he's quite a bit older than i am--he's 50. imagine doing that kind of running around, that kind of work load when you're 50. not fun. (ins. for which he pays out the nose to have, as do your janitors most likely)
* my sister works as a waitress, running her ass off, cleaning up messes, etc. for $10/hr. for a good week, most times it's $60/for an 8 hr shift. (no ins)
we're all fscked! looking at it this way, with perspective, is more honest and shows how we're all in the same boat. pitting academics against janitors against housekeepers doesn't do us a lot of good.
i seriously wonder IF there is an economic incentive to the phud. with a kid to raise and send to college in a few years, plus more down the road, i think i'd be better of economically saying "screw academia!" i love what i do now, i get to write and do cool things with grahics programs. nothing is ever the same and i can do all sorts of creative things AND use the theories and stuff i learned in grad school. if i miss teaching i can adjunct, teach adults at a prison, etc.
the incentive for being a prof is that once you get the job, you're far more secure than most. having been layed off from three jobs in two years right after highschool, this is a BIG thing for me! i am DEATHLY afraid of getting laid off and being homeless/having no money having been there twice in my life now. but i'll tell ya, having not one cent to your name as a high school graduate is a LOT scarier than having no money with a Master's or PhD.
you also run your own life in away than many employees don't have the luxury of doing. you get sabbaticals and vaca time. you get paid to ponder, think, argue, discuss.
At 12:04 AM 3/20/01 -0500, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>Kelley wrote:
>
>>my point was that, considering the amt of time one needs to spend, even
>>at a high ball of 15 hrs per week for, say, 30 students for a 16 wk
>>semester, your hourly wage is far better than that of a housekeeper or janitor.
>
>If you spend only 15 hours per week, yes (in my case, it would amount to a
>little less than $10 per hour *if* I spent only 15 hours per week per
>course, but keep in mind that the OSU pays better than most other colleges
>in the area -- the worst pay is Antioch College's which is about 60% of
>the OSU pay), but what if that's not the case? *Even* the Ohio State
>University where TAs & lecturers are _not_ unionized recognizes that a TA
>spends at least *20 hours* per week on work, and the pay scales are
>calculated on this basis. I believe, however, that most non-unionized TAs
>and lecturers work more than 20 hours per week. One of the anti-union
>arguments has been that TAs & lecturers don't even work for 20 hours per
>week (which tends to be the benchmark of what is called a "50%
>appointment"), as you allege, and that hence low wages are justified, but
>I don't think the argument holds.
>
>Hell, even anti-union administrators recognize 20 hours per week as the
>minimum: "'Employees work 40 hours a week, fifty weeks a year,' Beckman [a
>NYU spokesman] continued. 'But graduate assistants work 20 hours a week
>for 30 weeks'" (at
><http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/journal/union/univ_admin_1.htm>)!
>
>Your contention that most TAs & adjuncts spend only 15 hours or less per
>week will only help administrators, I'm afraid.
>
>>that's a burn out schedule. so pull it back down to, say, 8700 for 16
>>wks. plus teaching 2 courses in the summer for 2200 a pop.
>
>If you get any job in summer, that is. Summer, naturally, offers far
>fewer courses. Normally there is no course available for adjuncts at the
>OSU in summer. There aren't even enough jobs to go around for TAs who
>would like summer courses (and all of whom must be given jobs before any
>goes to an adjunct). At the OSU, there tends to be more jobs in Autumn
>than any other quarter, fewer in Winter than Autumn, much fewer jobs in
>Spring than Autumn & Winter. So my schedule is most often to teach 2 or 3
>in Autumn, 2 in Winter, 1 in Spring, & 0 in Summer.
>
>>again, it still sucks compared to the 40-75k fulltime fac tenured fac
>>work for the minimum of say 40 wks per year, but it's better than
>>housekeepers and janitors!
>
>The thing is, though, that if one is to be an adjunct who mainly teaches
>so-called "service courses," she *doesn't need* a Ph.D. (In fact, since
>so many "service courses" are already being taught by grad students, one
>might argue that you only need a bachelor's degree to teach
>undergraduates; at the Ohio State University, the Department of
>Mathematics even allows qualified undergrads -- who don't have to be math
>majors -- to teach a good number of courses!) What's an an economic
>incentive of pursuing a Ph.D. if you are much more likely to become an
>adjunct than a tenured full professor?
>
>More importantly, what's a political justification of the tenure system
>(part of the hierarchy)? After all, the thread "reparations &
>exploitation" came to center on an ethical & political justification of
>pay differentials (or lack thereof).
>
>Yoshie