EDITORIAL: University should listen to Union of Teaching Faculty's calls for fair pay, benefits
As an educational institution, the quality of education and thus the treatment and compensation of educators should be paramount in the university’s priorities.
Over 40 percent of classes are taught by temporary, non-tenure-track and adjunct faculty, who receive minimal salary, no benefits and no job security beyond the current school year.
As the Union of Teaching Faculty, which represents these temporary faculty, plans to picket outside the Education and Human Services Building today from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., the support of the university community should be for the demonstrators.
Temporary faculty are depended upon to make this university work. They are leaned on as a source of cheap labor, and are frankly taken advantage of by the university.
One of the main problems is the seeming arbitrariness of the decision of who gets hired as tenure-track faculty and who gets hired as temporary faculty. Having a temporary faculty member teaching a class does not necessarily mean these people are less qualified or the quality of education is lower.
To give temporary faculty the same pay and benefit of tenure-track faculty would be impossible and completely negate the benefits of having temporary faculty. But that is not what the UTF is asking for.
They are asking for enough pay, benefits and job security to make a living teaching at this university. Many temporary faculty work full-time on meager salaries. As mentioned in UTF president Jim Eikrem’s speech to the board of trustees on Feb. 17, many temporary faculty depend on government assistance just to buy food while working at the university.
All of this, just because it is cheaper for the university to take advantage of these teachers. Whether a temporary faculty with a $20,000 salary or a tenured faculty making $100,000 is teaching a class, tuition costs the same for students. It makes good business sense for the university.
But it does not make sense to keep so many teachers on which must struggle to live off meager wages.
The university needs to take heed to the pickets today and give the UTF and temporary faculty at CMU what they deserve — the ability to teach the students while keeping afloat in their own lives.
