National Adjunct Walkout Day Is Coming

The first National Adjunct Walkout Day is scheduled for February 25. Whether this becomes the first annual National Adjunct Walkout Day is probably dependent on how things go next week. As The Atlantic notes, “under some state laws governing unions and strikes, adjunct professors can’t actually walk out of classrooms without risking their jobs — so many campuses are organizing alternative activities instead.” Inside Higher Ed adds a bit more detail:

California doesn’t prohibit strikes among most kinds of public employees. The California Part-Time Faculty Association, which is not technically a union but represents the interests of more than 40,000 adjunct community college instructors, is organizing a day for action in Sacramento. University Professional and Technical Employees, a Communication Workers of America-affiliated union representing adjuncts at three state colleges, is hiring a bus for the occasion. Community college adjuncts in the San Diego area are planning teach-ins. But these efforts are all distinct from strikes.

The Atlantic also cites an article from Campus Safety Magazine that urges campus security to prepare for National Adjunct Walkout Day by, among other things, determining the “minimum threshold for using force” and making sure officers have flex-cuffs ready in the event that they will need to take protesters to jail.

I hadn’t thought of National Adjunct Walkout Day as something that might involve force and arrests; my mental picture is of adjuncts and students walking peacefully through campus, holding posterboard signs with slogans like “I pay $60,000 in tuition and get taught by people on food stamps.” (Those are a lot of words to fit on a posterboard, but you get the idea.)

Inside Higher Ed also quotes an adjunct who posted to the National Adjunct Walkout Day message board about a plan to wear branded T-shirts on February 25: “You can’t get fired for wearing a T-shirt — that’s free speech.” Sure, you probably aren’t going to get fired that day, or specifically for the T-shirt, but adjuncts live from one contract to the next and have no guarantee of contract renewal. I’d be curious to know: what happens if an adjunct protests, goes to jail, and misses class sessions? Does that adjunct lose his or her classes? Does that adjunct lose a percentage of pay for not fulfilling his or her duties? It is likely dependent on individual contract wording, but some adjuncts may literally be risking their livelihoods to protest.

Of course, the goal of the protest is to improve adjunct livelihoods, and sometimes it feels like the only way to get what you need is to risk what you have. The American Association of University Professors states that more than 50 percent of all faculty hold part-time or contingent positions, and a National Adjunct Walkout Day could make that percentage a little more visible.

If you are an adjunct, are you planning to participate? If you work (or go to school) on a college campus, are people preparing for National Adjunct Walkout Day? Do you think it will be successful — and by what definition of success? What’s fair for adjuncts, what’s fair for colleges, and what would be the ideal response to the first National Adjunct Walkout Day?

Photo credit: Ryan Tyler Smith


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