Brandeis Faculty Forward, a coalition of adjunct and contract faculty working to create a union at Brandeis, held their first major outreach event last Tuesday outside of the Usdan Student Center. The “Speak Out” event involved several faculty, students and staff from across the University speaking about why they support non tenure-track faculty forming a union at Brandeis.

If a union is formed, it will represent adjunct and contract faculty members, who are not hired by the University with expectations of job security and are paid significantly less than tenured or tenure-track faculty. The Brandeis union will be represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 509, which is helping to organize the Brandeis Faculty Forward initiative.

Winning the vote requires a 50 percent plus one vote majority. Brandeis Faculty Forward has not yet released any specific demands or requests for the University to act on.

Prof. Christopher Abrams (FA), who ran the event, told the Justice in an interview that he was “pleasantly surprised” with the student turnout for the Speak Out, saying that students were gathering at the table and asking questions even before the speakers began. The purpose of the event, according to Abrams, was to spread awareness of the unionization effort among students and faculty and earn signatures on an online petition in support of the unionization campaign. When asked why he felt it was important for students to be active in the issue when it will ultimately be decided by a faculty vote, Abrams replied that “we have felt all along that this effort is not just for our own betterment but actually to help preserve some of the character of Brandeis. Brandeis has baked right into its core the idea of social justice, of a collective voice for everyone.” In an email to the Justice, he stated that the campaign has received more than 50 union authorization cards but declined to give outspecific numbers.

The first speaker was Milagro Santana, a Sodexo cashier and the Brandeis union steward for Sodexo staff members, who are represented by UNITE HERE Local 26, a union for service industry workers in Boston. Santana said that she became the Brandeis union steward because she looks out for her fellow workers and said, “Having a union is a positive thing; you get your vacations, you get your personal time, you get sick time. … It gives us job security.” Sodexo employees unionized last year.

Next, Abrams addressed the crowd, saying that despite teaching at Brandeis for 11 years, he has never been hired for more than one year at a time and struggles to prove his employment record when he and his wife seek to refinance their home or apply for financial aid at daycares.

Prof. Mark Weinberg (ENG), a contract faculty member, spoke about how in order to make ends meet, he teaches at Boston University, Emerson College and Brandeis, meaning he has very little time to spend with his students. He also noted that because students pay approximately $6,250 per class, the University receives $125,000 in a class of 20 students, while the starting compensation of an adjunct for teaching that class is $5,000. “This is the future of education: better facilities, better grounds, better compensated administrators, not so much for the educators,” Weinberg said.

Divanna Eckels ’18, a member of the Brandeis Labor Coalition, spoke next to voice her club’s support for the union effort. Then, Andy Klatt, a professor of Spanish at Tufts University, spoke about how, as a result of unionization efforts, Tufts' faculty received multi-year contracts and a professional development fund to cover expenses for conferences and research. Additionally, according to Klatt, Tufts’ contract faculty received pay raises between 21 and 41 percent and have meetings five times a year between administrators and union representatives.

According to a flyer distributed at the event, by Sept. 2016, all Tufts's part-time faculty will make at least $7,300 per course, and part-time lecturers will receive first notice and fair consideration for any full-time positions available.

This includes a guaranteed interview and the opportunity to find out why one was not offered the position from a dean or department head. Abrams said in an interview with the Justice that Faculty Forward would consider the Tufts model, among others, if the union was formed.

Noting that Brandeis treats adjunct faculty better than at other institutions currently unionizing, Klatt said “our colleagues at Lesley University, Bentley University, Boston University, Northeastern University, are … looking to us at places like Tufts and Brandeis so that other people who have more exploitative administrations have something to aspire to.”

While introducing Prof. Gordon Fellman (SOC), Abrams stated that studies have shown that adjunct unionization would not increase tuition by a significant degree compared to other expenditures that increase tuition annually. When the Justice asked for his specific source, Abrams referred to a 2013 Kent State study, which found that unionization on average reduces a university’s direct expenses and core educational costs by one percent. A separate study done by the American Institutes of Research found that since 2006, between 30 and 32 percent of student tuition dollars on average go toward funding faculty salaries and other instruction costs.

Fellman, a tenured faculty member, said, “When I started teaching there were almost no adjuncts. There were very few people in that role. … I think those of us who are going to meet the candidates for a [new University] president will want to keep in mind one of the major issues, which is ‘How are you going to handle the adjunct pay?’”

Prof. Kelly Reddie (Heller) and Ben Kreider, a Ph. D. candidate in the Heller School, then voiced their support for unionization on the principle that it is also a social justice issue.

Kreider, who is part of a working group researching work wealth and inequality at Heller, said, “There is fear on this campus. … People say Brandeis is this great university, and it is, but just talking to professors and asking them about this, they were very afraid.”

In an email to the Justice, Kreider elaborated that he’s found faculty “seem to believe that speaking in favor of the union could lead to retaliation. However, they were also in favor of having a union and voiced a number of concerns to me about a lack of transparency regarding pay and career advancement. This seems to indicate that they do not feel very secure in their jobs, and that they agree with the objectives of the union campaign.” Kreider noted that the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gives workers the right to unionize without fear of retaliation.

Prof. Amy Todd (Rabb) then spoke about her concerns, noting that adjunct faculty were never intended to be so over-utilized by universities when the model was invented.

“My salary is more than covered by what just two enrolled students pay to take [my] class,” Todd said. “Those of us who teach online … have additional concerns as we see Brandeis seeking licensing rights to our course content. We have no voice in the agreements that we are presented with. We have very little voice in anything.”

Rabbi Tovah Spitzer, a member of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, then voiced her support, adding, “Brandeis has historic connections to the Jewish community, and there is no higher value in Judaism than teaching.”

Aaron Goodwin ’18 of BLC closed the first half of the event, noting, “These people are more than just teachers; they’re friends, and they’re mentors.”

In the second half of the event, union advocates took questions and comments from a crowd of students and faculty in the Alumni Lounge.