I teach at Poorly Run Community College in the SW. PRCC has so many problems that it's hard to just pick one to bitch about.But here's one!
This semester, part-timers started their teaching during the last week of August. We have YET to receive our contracts (they will be sent for our "consideration" next week). We don't get our first paychecks until the week of October 1st.
I will have taught 5 weeks of 4 classes by then.
This is how PRCC does it. I know because I asked and I was told.
My dream is to turn the contract down, waiting until that October 1 check comes - if it does - and then set those 4 classes adrift. (I won't though, because the kids don't deserve it.)
Q: I hate to skew the page so adjunct-y today, but is this similar to other contract/pay schedules for part-timers elsewhere?
I adjuncted for a year, one semester at two institutions, and yes, it was like that, too. We were paid on the same schedule as the graduate students at the university and three times a semester at the community college. I nearly starved during September.
ReplyDeleteI left a CC in the SW this year, and our adjuncts had similarly vile conditions.
ReplyDeleteI heard one older gentleman say one day to a group of part-timers: "Why don't we all just refuse the contract. We could shut the place down."
Nobody's eyes left the floor. They needed the money and had no choice but to accept the bullshit system as it stood.
I think this is almost criminal.
I signed my part-time contract before July 4 for a semester beginning Aug 29. It took until Sept 12 for the hiring paperwork to be finalized in the Dean's office so that I could access my class roster (AFTER add/drop deadline) and procure an ID card. I was able to get my email account and Blackboard access through a favor granted by a very nice IT-related person who trusted me when I told her I had been hired for the semester). Our paychecks come the last day of the month, with the first one of this semester paid at the end of Sept (same for the grad students). By then, the term will be 1/3 completed.
ReplyDeleteDo your department chairs have any say in this? Thus used to happen at my college--the excuse being that they needed to see if the classes were full (if not, they are pro rated, which is a whole 'nother kind of bullshit). I and my fellow chairs ganged up on the VPI and told him it was unacceptable to withhold pay and we expected him to sign contracts and push adjunct payroll forward so they get paid on the same schedule as full timers. We follow through with adjustments afterwards if there's a need to pro rate. We got a new prez, and we have taken on the attitude of "this is how it's always been done" and he doesn't know any better.
ReplyDeleteTalk to your chair--he/she may not be aware, and may be able to help change this.
I'm in a similar boat ...
ReplyDeleteThe 'better run' Program A has a four week lag before first check. Classes started 09/12, first biweekly check 10/15 ... all ostensibly due to the need to confirm class rosters.
(I say better run because Pgm A actually offers me a handsome benefits package, so long as a minimum teaching load is maintained. However, because of the salary lag, insurance contributions have to be doubled for the first few pay periods of the new term.)
My better paying Program B pays on the 15th of the month, no matter. So, usually this means an equivalent four week lag time.
(After two years of work, without notice, Program C didn't offer me any courses this term.)
Now, I guess I was better off in that I actually had a summer class load (1 class from Pgm A; 2 from Pgm B).
However, for the fall I have three classes from each program, plus an extra service project (completed over the summer, but paying during fall term) with Pgm A.
So ... on 10/15 I will suddenly see my income jump to a seven class load.
Meanwhile, I just got back from grocery shopping at the dollar store.
Oh, honey, I feel your pain.
ReplyDeleteI felt it as an adjunct.
I feel it now as a tenured associate prof in Fucktardia, formerly known as Wisconsin.
Our contract year started August 26th. We don't get paid til Oct. 1 (and this is how it's always been).
Fun fact: I don't have a contract yet either.
Fun fact #2: I just went grocery shopping at Aldi.
It makes a certain amount of sense. Normally employees get paid after they do the work, and it’s common to have a two-week delay between completing work and getting paid for it. That allows the payroll people to do their thing, fix problems (someone has always screwed up their timesheet(s) which need to be straightened out by payroll), add new people, remove those who have left, change pirates for others, etc.
ReplyDeleteOK so far? A 2 week delay is normal. Why is it a month long wait then? Because of the school’s need to make sure that the class will be taught. So you finish your first week of class. You have enough students, so class will start. You’re already well into that pay period so the “pay this employee” clock doesn’t start running until the start of the next pay period.
Sept 1: start class.
Sept 15: pay process can start since the class is confirmed
Sept 30: Pay day!
I don’t know why you would wait 6 weeks, unless payroll is set up oddly.
And yes, it is mighty annoying. I got my last check for Summer in mid August and will get my first check for Fall next Friday.
LOL, "pirates' should be "payrates." Darn autocorrect!!!
ReplyDeleteGod, could you imagine if one kind soul stepped in to fund the protest?
ReplyDeleteAdjuncts could teach as normal and then turn the low-paying contract down as a group unless it was raised to a living wage. If the university refuses, said Kind Soul Richie McRich could give them the money to cover the term (encouraging participation). If the CC/uni has ANY SENSE AT ALL and gives them more money (which they would have to, with thousands of students at stake) then it would be a tremendous lesson learned.
You know, like a union would do if adjuncts had the extra time and energy to form a union.
Why worry about CM being "all adjunct-y"? Adjunctry (? adjunctrinessossityism?) is central to the Misery.
ReplyDeleteI love Annie Oakley's solution. And what Middle-Aged and Morose said is how it was explained to me when I started my first TT job at Slumping Morale Community College.
However, the "you get paid after you do the work" logic doesn't apply to child care, monthly commuter rail, or college parking passes. Add those costs to the teaching wardrobe and laptop (because SMCC had no funds for an office computer for me), and I was in the hole a couple of thousand dollars for the first 6 weeks of teaching. Getting that first paycheck allowed me to almost break even!
AdMonk ... but make sure it was an adjunct only union.
ReplyDeleteIn my Program A (see above), I am represented by a union -- the same one that represents the TT folk.
Our second class status is contractually mandated!
I occasionally consider what I would do if I won the lottery. This is at the top of my list. I would pay adjuncts the remainder of their contracts if they quite when they are given their contracts in Oc-fucking-tober.
ReplyDeleteYes, the students would be screwed. But you know what? I don't fucking care. It's a goddamn job to me, not my life's fucking calling. That'w why faculty get the short end of the stick so often. Despite all the bitching and moaning, some of you "do it for the children." That's one reason why we are treated like shit.
I was gonna say the same thing. "Doing it for the kids" is how they screw you every time.
ReplyDeleteI've seen this sort of pay schedule at several institutions. Thing is, it's illegal in most states to let someone work this long without paying them. Call your state dept of labor and get them in a big fucking pile of hot water.
ReplyDeleteThat's how my grad school worked. That is also how my current university works. I'm still getting paid for last years work. But on Oct 1 my pay raise will hit my bank account.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's common not just for adjuncts but also for full-timers now. In my first full-time position, I was a VAP. I had uprooted my family and moved 1000 miles to report for an August 15 start date (orientation and other new hire stuff even prior to in-service week). It was only once I was there that I was informed that all new hires got their first paycheck October 1st. We'd spent almost every dime we had in the move. My father sold his car so we could pay our rent and eat.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started here at Large Urban Community College, I got my first paycheck within two weeks and was elated. New hires even got a speech about how important we were and that's why they made sure we got paid on time. I didn't realize how badly they were screwing the adjuncts till I'd been there long enough to get to know some and discovered they were in the October 1st pay lag. Several solutions have been tried to get past it. None has worked well.
And now that we are run like a business, HR has implemented pay lag for everyone. That way they can be sure if they fire you or you leave of your own accord, they have an extra paycheck they can use to take money out if you don't turn in a key or hurl feces all over your office or whatever terrible thing it is they think you're going to do that they can bill you for. This summer, we all worked for 30 days before we got paychecks. Some faculty who have taken their salaries over 9 months got hit hard when they discovered that the pay lag made their first paycheck two weeks later this fall also.
If they don't start the payroll process for 2 weeks, until the "class is confirmed", does that mean that if you teach a class for 2 weeks before it's cancelled for lack of enrollment, you simply won't get paid for those 2 weeks' worth of work?
ReplyDeleteI had the same question as Merely...if you have a few drops and your course is cancelled, are you paid for none of your work? If so, thats pretty fucked right there.
ReplyDeleteJeez, and I thought I had it bad when I was an Accursed Visiting Assistant Professor, when they wouldn't give me a contract for next academic year until May 1! Any university that plays as rough as yours deserves to have faculty leave it in the lurch, if better opportunities come by for them. Maybe they'd learn something from having this happen...Naaaaahhhhhhhhhh...
ReplyDeleteI worked part time in our system for 8 years, and we always got paid the first week of October. It sucked. The weird thing is, we sign our contracts right away! Even now, this semester I am doing an overload, and I won't get paid my first check (along with the adjuncts) until the end of the next pay period, even though the work started in August. But OMG, I had to have that contract in at the part time office by the first day of classes!!!!
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I have been shopping at Aldi since they opened one near me. I love that store, and it saves me between 300 and 400 per month! I'm always shocked when I see people doing their groceries at the 'regular' stores....don't they KNOW about how much money they could save? I feel like doing an Aldi's commercial! And since I am so often hearing about how poor my students are...and how few opportunities they have because of it, I do wonder why instead of saving their money by shopping at places like that, they spend it on the fanciest gadgets and hair extensions and tattoos, and elaborate fake nails (which I would love to have, but would never spend the money on...the fake nails, that is). Another thing I will never understand!
In my part of the crowded I-95 corridor, I've taught at a semi-rural CC and a slightly more suburban SLAC (in the midst of a multi-year reinvention...new name, new buildings, new sports, and a growing list of graduate, accelerated and online offerings seeking to grab their share of the non-traditional student marketplace).
ReplyDeleteCC paid every two weeks beginning the third week of a 16 week term, and was obsessed with early delivery of contracts.
During an 8 week acclerated term, SLAC pays twice: around week 5 and around the the last week of class. Let's just say they are not as administratively obsessive with delivering contracts as the CC.
Because of my full time work, neither is a problem for me. If I didn't have other employment, I'd expect to have a different opinion.
I'm with Eskarina. There's no such thing as skewing this page too adjunct-y, given the current prevalence of adjuncts in the academy, and the disproportional share of misery they/we absorb (I can't really put myself in the "adjunct" category for this one, since I, like our TT faculty, was paid on the 15th -- 3 weeks after the semester started, and 4 after required meetings started popping up, but still a fairly decent schedule, and I'm always relieved to get that last paycheck at the end of June, a few weeks *after* I turned in grades).
ReplyDeleteI was paid on schedules similar to the ones described above when I was an adjunct, and only survived because I had (1) a small inheritance from a grandparent, which I drew on from time to time (as little as possible, but still, it was there), and (2) a credit card with a quite high limit (acquired when I was a senior at an Ivy League school; Citibank just kept upping the limit every year in accordance, I assume, with what they thought were my likely earnings. Since I didn't apply for additional credit for years after that, they had no way to learn that in some years the credit limit exceeded my income by a considerable amount. All the same, it's an expensive way to tide oneself over -- not as expensive as a pay-day lender, but expensive nonetheless, on a paycheck that can't afford any additional gouges).
So, essentially, I was able to be an adjunct for five years because I had a bit of a financial cushion and a way to borrow against my anticipated paycheck. Neither should be a prerequisite to getting work in the academy.
And yes, if anybody is teaching for two weeks and then not being paid for those weeks because the class didn't "make," they really ought to be writing their elected representatives, whatever state agency steps in when people aren't paid, etc., etc. That's got to be illegal. As far as I'm concerned, any adjunct with a class on the schedule as of a month before the start of classes ought to be guaranteed, at the very least, a "preparation fee" equal to one to two weeks' worth of salary, to cover the pre-semester work that gets done whether the class "makes" or not. And of course anyone who actually meets with a class has to be compensated for that work (the only exception to that is when faculty members voluntarily sub for each other on an emergency basis, and even a situation like that shouldn't go on for more than a week or two before a department steps in and makes formal, compensated arrangements).