“Adjunct,” a feature length movie, realistically covers much of what happens in the life of a higher education teacher who could be labeled an adjunct, a part-timer, or a contingent faculty member.

A trend in higher education, especially since the 1970s, is for an increasing number of teaching positions being held by well-educated gig workers who, unlike full-time tenured faculty, endure low pay often with no benefits, and little to no job security. In fact, due to their low pay, many adjuncts are on public assistance.

Obviously, there are those working in higher education who benefit from the exploitation of adjuncts and the money made available from this exploitation. They include the swelling ranks of overpaid administrators and tenured full-time faculty members. The latter have what has been a guaranteed job often with six figure salaries and benefits, their own office, and a more desirable teaching schedule, among other perks.

Those who work as adjuncts do so for different reasons. Some have outside full-time jobs and careers. They are not dependent on the teaching job, but take it on as a side gig, often for fun. They may be valuable faculty members who are hired because they have practical experience outside the ivory tower that enables them to provide students with inside knowledge about a job they may be considering for themselves.

Others work full-time at one college and take on part-time work at a second college to supplement their income. Like full-time faculty at a college who teach overloads or extra classes beyond what is required of a full-time faculty member, they may be taking jobs away from adjuncts.

Then there are those adjuncts who exclusively or predominantly depend on the income gained from their teaching work, sometimes at more than one college, to make ends meet. These adjuncts are a dominated workforce. They know that if they cause “trouble,” they may lose their job and harm their chances of obtaining a job at another college/university, and likely permanently undermine their chances at ever gaining one of the few tenure track positions that is available.

The lead character in Adjunct, Amer, who won an award for a short story, teaches six classes a year at what comes across as a public California State University. He is a caring, supportive, and engaging teacher who loves his job. He is more than willing to help his students.

Due to his low pay of $19,000/year, he supplements his income in another gig “profession,” driving for Uber. He also works as a clerk in a liquor store. Nevertheless, he is currently homeless and broke. He has lost his apartment and is sleeping on the couch in his brother’s home until he can save up enough money to be able to pay first and last month’s rent for a place of his own.

Adjunct is more than a film about being an educator. It also shows the impact and psychological stress precarious work has on one’s day-to-day life. A girlfriend breaks up with Amer that can partially be attributed to his economic circumstances. The breakup occurs when he is late for a planned evening together because he had to take Uber customers on a longer ride beyond what was first requested. After driving them to their planned original destination, they demand to be driven further. Amer says he can’t, which prompts one of the passengers into threatening to give him a poor rating if he does not meet their demand. He gives in. Of the three passengers, one is a current student who does not acknowledge to her two friends that their driver is her professor, nor does she speak up when he is threatened with a poor rating. There is hope as she later apologizes to Amer for not saying anything at the time.

What makes Adjunct compelling is how it depicts the indignities that one often must endure as a gig driver or educator, many of which I have experienced as a part-time teacher in community colleges for over forty years. The movie is likely to resonate with all part-time faculty especially if they teach the same classes as their full-time “colleagues” for which they are paid significantly less even if they are more qualified and experienced.

A Few of the Many Examples of Indignities Faced by Adjuncts Presented in the Film

What follows are some examples of what Amer experiences. Even if the specific incidences have never happened to a real life adjunct, they illustrate the atmosphere and environment an adjunct must navigate in dealing with off-the-wall students, and clueless and insensitive people with power over oneself.

When one works as an adjunct and is heavily dependent on the job, the ideal is to get hired to one of the few full-time tenure positions. To have a better chance at getting such a job, one will do free work to benefit the college and may also have to engage in a lot of ass licking by being compliant and showing complete respect for those above one and the existing hierarchical structure.

Amer is a candidate for a full-time job, the first available in his department in five years. Not having heard whether he has been hired, he asks his Tesla owning department chair about the position who tells him that the decision will soon be made. He goes on to state that Amer “brings tremendous value to the department” and that he’s “putting in more time and effort than some of the full timers.” He then asks Amer to volunteer to be a judge for a short story contest to which he agrees.

Shortly thereafter, Amer learns he has not gotten the job. He meets with his department chair who says he understands that Amer is disappointed, but that the person hired had credentials that were too impressive to pass up that included being a published novelist (of a book that we later learn has received unimpressive ratings). He goes on to say that he knew Amer would understand because the committee needed to do what is best for the department. He lets Amer know that he fought for him and that he was “so close,” but his hands were tied by the committee responsible for the hiring.

Another indignity Amer faces is when an overly demanding student asks him to review a list of people he wants to interview presumably for an assignment. Amer tells him that he does not have the time and has another obligation but will do so by the weekend. The student insists that Amer’s input happens sooner. After Amer, again, politely says he will respond over the weekend, the student expresses acceptance, but soon thereafter goes to Amer’s supervisor and files a complaint. Amer is called into her office. He is not asked to respond to the obviously unjustified complaint. However, he is told it will be put in his file.

Later, Amer is essentially told by his department chair that he is expected to participate on a panel for which he will not be compensated. Before the start of the panel, the panelists gather. A fellow panelist is the person hired for the full-time job, a decent fellow, who asks the person in charge about when he will be paid the promised $1,500 for his participation.

Amer can’t believe what he is hearing. He points out that the newly hired full-timer is being paid an amount of money that comes to his monthly salary. He is provided with a lame explanation by a full-time professor with a six-figure income. The newly hired full-timer is not yet a faculty member, and that is why he is getting paid. He goes on to say that he himself is not getting paid, and that the college policy is to not pay staff for being on the panel. Amer spontaneously decides not to participate in the panel.

In a subsequent scene, Amer is told by his department chair that he will not be teaching a creative writing class that he has successfully taught for years. The explanation is that it is being given to the newly hired full-time faculty member. However, his department chair claims that he has made a big effort on Amer’s behalf to secure for him an introduction to poetry class so he will not have to endure a reduced schedule.

Later, Amer receives a letter from the college’s personnel office informing him that he will be losing his employee medical benefits. He goes to the personnel office to find out why since he is scheduled to teach the same number of classes that made him eligible for the benefit. He is provided with an outrageous bureaucratic excuse. The poetry class is classified as an emergency hire and does not count towards the load requirement that enables one to be eligible to receive medical benefits.

Not to take away from the high quality of the story, what is disappointedly absent from it is any coverage of what adjuncts, as a group, can do about their situation or the role of the union that likely “represents” Amer at this California college. The filmmaker has written that the union was covered in the script, but regretfully, like many independent filmmakers on limited budgets, he lacked the resources to include it.

Union leaders in higher education who are the leaders of wall-to-wall unions that represent all faculty whether they are full-time or adjuncts, when asked, will most likely express a commitment to social justice and equality. However, faculty unions, whose existence is important, are almost always dominated by full-time tenured faculty who benefit from the continuation of two-tier contracts as do the administrators with whom they negotiate over contract provisions. Too often, union leaders, even when they are themselves adjunct faculty, are unlikely to stand up for and fight to significantly improve the conditions of the adjunct contingent faculty they supposedly represent.

There is a good possibility that had Amer reached out to his union over losing his medical benefits or the unjustified student complaint being put in his file, he would have received an expression of sympathy and told that under the existing rules, nothing could be done. That is why adjuncts cannot solve the problems they face on their own. They need to be organized to fight for equal treatment.

My positive reaction to the film is strong because it effectively depicts many of my own life experiences and what I assume are the experiences of the thousands of other part-time gig faculty members working in our institutions of higher education. This film deserves to be widely viewed. I have only discussed a fraction of the many issues covered. Even if you are not an adjunct, the film is educational, engaging and worth watching.

Adjunct is available on Vimeo. It can also be viewed on platforms that presumably are collecting data about our viewing habits,Amazon,Apple, and Google.

The post The Movie “Adjunct” Effectively Depicts Gig Faculty Work appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

From CounterPunch.org via this RSS feed