Two and half years ago, 500 anxious Mercy College adjuncts — many frustrated over low pay, short commitments and tenuous job security at a college where adjuncts make up 70% of the college’s instructional faculty — voted 4 to 1 to authorize a strike if a new contract with college administrators had not been reached before the end of the spring 2022 semester.
That vote in 2019 triggered a lengthy contract dispute with Mercy administrators that ended on May 2 when the two sides reached an agreement, but faculty adjunct leader Charles Chesnavage told the Bronx Times that there was an estimated 50% turnover of Mercy adjuncts over that time period.
Mercy College, adjuncts reach tentative agreement to avert Monday strike
According to a 2020 report from the American Federation of Teachers, nearly half of U.S. adjunct faculty members “struggle to cover basic household expenses” and more than 20% depend on public assistance. As more teacher unions explore the prospect of unionization, Mercy adjuncts say that Mercy students played a vital role in shifting the balance of negotiations.
Nearly 1,000 Mercy students mobilized for their professors and put pressure on Mercy College President Tim Hall and Mercy administrators through a series of public demonstrations including an on-campus protest on April 21, which facilitated three-day negotiations from April 26-28, when a deal was reached in the 11th hour to avoid a strike.
But growing discontent between the two sides was ratcheted up in summer 2019 when Mercy’s adjunct and lecturer members voted overwhelmingly to unionize into the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 200 United, adjuncts claim.
“Despite Mercy’s best efforts to thwart unionization efforts, I believe the Mercy student activist actions and the strike vote and strike date made the difference,” said Chesnavage. “The letter and the chalk talk protest were the two biggest student actions and it was proof that students have an undeniable voice when addressing administrative concerns on college campuses.”
Former adjuncts at Mercy College claimed that union-busting attempts from outgoing President Hall and other administrators prompted them to quit their jobs and abandon the profession entirely. Additionally, adjuncts say that Mercy hired anti-union laws firms to represent them in more than 30 sessions of negotiations with adjuncts and their union.
“Mercy and President Tim Hall followed the playbook of Amazon and so many other corporations that are preferring to spend millions on a union-busting law firm than simply negotiating with the workers,” Chesnavage said. “Mercy used the reason of a new contract as the reason for why negotiations took so long, but in all honestly we felt it was a delayed tactic that was a strategy of union-busting law firms.”
Mercy officials did not directly respond to Bronx Times’ inquiries regarding adjunct claims that the college administrators employed union-busting tactics, hired anti-union firms and took retaliatory measures taken against students and adjuncts during the contract negotiations.
“Mercy College is pleased to have finalized the initial collective bargaining agreement in May 2022 with the SEIU, the union representing our adjunct faculty members,” said Laura Plunkett, a Mercy College spokesperson, in a statement. “We look forward to a productive long-term relationship with the SEIU. With many of these types of negotiations, people leave the table feeling like nobody won; with this contract, we are confident that everyone achieved a satisfactory result.”
Prior to the new contract, there were faculty members working up to 20 years without a raise, adjuncts say.
“Some of the professors didn’t want to go on strike, but they had to go. They don’t care about the money, they care about us,” said Loushema Lott-Coakley, a student activist. “They don’t want to leave and have our needs unmet. The last thing we need is a random professor that doesn’t know us or didn’t take the time to invest in us.”
For the adjuncts that remain, the new contract includes a two-year appointment and a pay increase in the third year of an adjunct appointment to $3,700 and $3,600 for those with and without terminal degrees, respectively.
Prior to striking a new agreement, pay rate for Mercy College adjuncts was $3,000 per course, and, while rates vary, adjunct pay remains low. Nationally, adjunct faculty members make, on average, just $3,500 per course. Mercy adjuncts had been pushing for and are still seeking a raise to $4,000 in future negotiations.
Thousands of teachers around the United States are resuming a strike wave in education that swept the country in 2018 and 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. As college administrators nationwide pledge to improve the efficiency of higher education at a time of limited resources and sharply declining enrollment, many college faculty and students are tired of waiting.
Students often choose the sides of their faculty when in it comes to strikes, because students themselves have unmet satisfaction with school administrators, Mercy student activists told the Bronx Times. At Mercy’s Bronx campus, which is located in the Hutchinson Metro Center, students say that low enrollment levels of classes with 4 and 5 students pose cancellations threats to needed courses, and without reliable adjuncts, their education journey is stunted.
Lott-Coakley said Mercy students hope to have their concerns heard, namely over lack of safety on the Bronx campus which includes walks to subway stations and passed a psychiatric facility, as well as frustrations over the withdrawal process, which students say lead to a loss in loans or scholarships.
“When the professors go on the strike, it affects the students. Administration thought they could get other people to replace the adjuncts,” Lott-Coakley said. “Our learning environment is their working environment, so it has a butterfly effect on everyone in the school system.”
Additional gains for Mercy adjuncts in the new contract include money for professional development, academic freedom provisions, course cancellations fees and heightened job security for adjuncts who last more than two years. Adjuncts are still wary about certain provisions which are dependent on student enrollment — Mercy’s student enrollment was around 4,513 full-time students, according to most recent state data — and disappointed over a rejected demand for training compensation.
Most Mercy adjuncts will receive raises of 20% over the life of the contract.
Reach Robbie Sequeira at rsequeira@schnepsmedia.com or (718) 260-4599. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
