From Anne Balay, Delegate to HELU from the National Writers Union and staff with SEIU 509
On March 16th, HELU’s Contingency Task Force (CTF) hosted a zoom conversation about union democracy. I was one of four panelists discussing the tension between growing our movement by uniting across differences in power and pay and ensuring that union democracy goes beyond access for all and extends to having a platform and feeling heard. I’m a Delegate to HELU from the National Writers Union (I’ve published two books plus other things) but I live in Boston, where I’m on staff with SEIU 509. I work with Grad students at BU and with Part Time Faculty at both BU and Lesley University.
As someone who has had many jobs including adjunct gigs of every conceivable type at 16 different institutions, I think often about union democracy. HELU’s CTF, a herd of cranky cats capably led by Delegate and Steering Committee member Joe Ramsey, centered this tension deliberately because contingent academic workers often feel invisible. I believe that our movement won’t achieve our “wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast” vision by brushing the resentment and bitterness invisibility causes under the rug of solidarity. In that spirit, we shared stories of marginalization and contempt from our tenure track colleagues and from our own unions. And then we strategized how to overcome the splintering that these experiences motivate.
For example, union democracy comes from not just giving everyone a vote, but also from providing a context in which they feel safe and supported to have a voice. Or from not only inviting adjuncts to serve as union or academic representatives, but in paying them for that time and protecting their jobs while they do so. Or from recognizing that academic freedom is under attack now, meaning that more people are now subject to being fired without cause . . . like adjuncts always were. Tenured and pre-tenure panelists described challenges and breakthroughs that their unions have made in becoming more responsive to contingent workers, and to non-faculty academic workers more broadly.
Sharing these stories — sharing what one participant called the deep wounds arising from sustained disrespect — leads not to division but to more people being willing to sit at our table because they can bring their history, their anger, and their deep commitment to fixing this thing.