Higher education is the site of an ongoing conflict. At the heart of this struggle are the precariously employed faculty ‘contingents’ who work without basic job security, living wages or benefits. Yet they have the incentive and, if organized, the power to shape the future of higher education.
Power Despite Precarity is part history, part handbook and a wholly indispensable resource in this fight. Joe Berry and Helena Worthen outline the four historical periods that led to major transitions in the worklives of faculty of this sector. They then take a deep dive into the 30-year-long struggle by California State University lecturers to negotiate what is recognized as the best contract for contingents in the US.
The authors ask: what is the role of universities in society? Whose interests should they serve? What are the necessary conditions for the exercise of academic freedom? Providing strategic insight for activists at every organizing level, they also tackle ‘troublesome questions’ around legality, union politics, academic freedom and how to recognize friends (and foes) in the struggle.
Tabella dei contenuti
Photographs
Series Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Introduction
PART I – THE CASE OF THE LECTURERS IN THE CSU SYSTEM
1. Student Strikes and Union Battles
2. Layoffs and Hard Years for Organizing
3. Revolution in the Union
4. “They have nothing to teach us”
PART II – HIGHER ED WAS NEVER A LEVEL TERRAIN OF STRUGGLE
5. Four Transitions and How Casualization Served Managers
PART III – WHAT WE WANT AND WHAT THE CFA GOT
6. Blue Sky #1 Organizing and Economics
7. Blue Sky #2 Job Security, Academic Freedom and the Common Good
8. Beyond the Sausage-making: A Close Look at the CFA-CSU Contract
PART IV – THE DIFFICULTY OF THINKING STRATEGICALLY
9. Strategies Emerging From Practice
10. The Contingent Faculty Movement as a Social Movement
PART V – SEVEN TROUBLESOME QUESTIONS
11. What Gets People Moving?
12. Who is the Enemy? Who are Our Allies?
13. What is “Professionalism” for Us?
14. How Does It Feel?
15. Is this legal?
16. What About Leftists?
17. How Do We Deal With Union Politics?
PART VI – USING THE POWER WE HAVE
18. Hopes and Dangers
Essential Terms
John Hess: A Life in the Movement
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Circa l’autore
Helena Worthen is a novelist, union activist and retired contingent faculty worker. Her book, What Did You Learn at Work Today? The Forbidden Lessons of Labor Education (Hardball, 2013) won the 2014 Best Book award from the United Association for Labor Education.
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