-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Margaret Mary Vojtko, an adjunct professor who had taught French at Duquesne University for 25 years, died of a massive heart attack at the age of 83. Adjunct professors at Duquesne make between $3000 and $3500 per semester per course. In the best of times, Margaret Mary, teaching three course, wasn’t even clearing $25,000 a year with no benefits and no job security. After Duquesne reduced her to one course, Margaret Mary couldn’t afford to pay the electricity bill and her home became uninhabitable in the winter.
Ironically, Duquesne’s president, Charles J. Dougherty, is a nationally recognized scholar and expert in health care ethics. Since Margaret Mary didn’t have health care, I guess there was no health care ethics involved. Duquesne’s president makes over $700,000 a year with full benefits.
In 2005, adjunct professors make up about 48% of the faculty at colleges and universities. Today, that number is 75% as universities cut costs by reducing the number of more expensive tenured professors. The cost savings are not passed along to students. Duquesne, a private university, has increased tuition an average of 5.4% per year between 2006 and 2010. Higher tuition and lower costs via less qualified professors, the best of both worlds, for the universities.
A majority of the 130 adjunct faculty at Duquesne decided to organize as a chapter of the United Steelworkers and submitted a petition for an election to the National Labor Relations Board. Duquesne hired a Memphis lawyer known for his counseling organizations on how to remain union free. Duquesne filed a motion that since it was a “church-operated school,” it was exempt from NLRB jurisdiction. The motion was denied.
Although Duquesne was founded by, and is sponsored by, members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, it does not depend financially on the Catholic Church, does not require its faculty members to be Catholic, and does not require its student to study Catholicism.
As universities focus on increasing their endowments through cost cutting measures like hiring more adjunct professors, they lose sight of their raison d’être, to provide a quality education for their students.
Only a small part of the U.S. News & World Report rankings are based on the percentage of faculty who are full time. Even this small part is being gamed by the universities. The University of Nebraska interpreted the U.S. News question on the percentage of full time faculty to cover only those faculty who are tenured or on a tenure track and not to cover adjunct faculty. While U.S. News has since detailed that adjuncts should be counted, the low contribution to a school’s ranking, just 5%, is obscene.
The Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice has declared that “Union busting is a mortal sin.” Georgetown University, one of two Catholic universities to make the U.S. News top 25, just recognized its adjunct professors’ union, citing the Catholic Church’s social justice teachings.
H/T: Daniel Kovalik, Austin Cline, Mark Oppenheimer, Claudio Sanchez, Scott Jaschik, Moshe Z. Marvit.
Otteray,
“Want to be REALLY unpopular? Make sure old folks and the disabled don’t get their pittance on the due date. However, I am sure all those charities we hear talked about so much will step in and fill the gap.”
A mere 57million people in this country depend on Social Security to keep themselves out of poverty. So what? Who cares about the elderly and disabled–the “takers” who suck off the system?
Juliet,
The rule is to owe obeisance to them that brung you to the dance. Their allegiance is not to the people, but to the oligarchs who want more and more and pay less and less.
I see that the funds for Social Security and SSI will be tied up after the 15th of the month, unless the debt ceiling is raised. Want to be REALLY unpopular? Make sure old folks and the disabled don’t get their pittance on the due date. However, I am sure all those charities we hear talked about so much will step in and fill the gap.
Yeah, right.
OS: This is quite serious. My grandmother and sister each receive about $700 a month from Social Security. That’s what they live on. I’m not really in a position to help them, and neither is anyone else in our family, but I will have to.
On a positive note, my husband and I will have health insurance again soon. He doesn’t have an employer sponsored plan, so we used our state’s exchange. I signed up the first day, with no problems. Thanks, President Obama!
Shutting down the government over Obamacare was classic Republican myopia and stupidity. They should let it be put into effect, and people will then see the “train wreck.” The duopoly is simply Dumb and Dumber, ironic since Dumb and Dumber 2 is in production.
I commented earlier on the Dylan thread and here, lamenting how politics has polluted art, comedy, sports, etc. I have learned from my craft that you often learn more from what people don’t say, than from what they do. A lively thread on Oldman stopped dead in its tracks. I’ll take your word knowing his politics has no effect. Kudos. You’re simply wrong about me, and the evidence is in the Dylan thread, before this all got pissy and petty. On the topic you brought up, Oldman got angry when the director of The Contender turned it into the usual Hollywood Dems are good and Republicans are evil. He was told that while he was playing a slimy Republican, superbly of course, that the flick would be even handed. I must say he must have been pretty naïve back then, it was a DreamWorks production. You live and learn. I can watch an actor I despise on a personal level[Alec Baldwin comes to mind], w/o it hindering on iota my appreciation for his acting, both dramatic and comedic. I just hope my letting all the Oldman lovers here know his politics doesn’t ruin their enjoyment. Some aren’t as pure as us. I see Blouise is also an elevated thinker. No surprise. Any Gary Sinise fans out there???
OS,
I think Obama is following Clinton’s script from ’95.
Oldman’s Smiley was pitch perfect. Who the he!! cares about his politics. He should have won the Oscar.
Or are a corporation.
Or a foreign entity giving through a Super-PAC.
Or named Koch.
Now, now, Juliet. They care what Americans want . . . if they’re rich and give them enough money. 😉
Elaine,
That is some kind of hardball Obama is playing. The Republicans seem to be in total disarray. There are a whole series of front page posts on Daily Kos and other blogs that document just how bad the disarray is. Rand Paul is perturbed that Obama did not poll test his position. Only one thing wrong with that reasoning.
Full story at the link.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/03/1243783/-Rand-Paul-can-t-believe-President-Obama-hasn-t-poll-tested-the-shutdown
I guess poll numbers would matter if Republicans cared about what the American people want. They don’t.
Not at all, nick.
Politics of the artists – unless the art itself is political in nature – are simply irrelevant except possibly in extreme cases (like Orson Scott Card for example). You’re the one who seems to think they make a difference. You’re the one who brought it up.
For one, I love Oldman’s acting just as much now as I did before your bloviating.
Blouise,
Thanks for the link. Let’s hope Congress gets its act together soon:
Obama: Social Security Checks Will Stop When Debt Ceiling Is Reached
The Huffington Post
By Arthur Delaney
Posted: 10/03/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/03/social-security-debt-ceiling_n_4037870.html
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Thursday that while it’s bad members of Congress have allowed a government shutdown, it would be worse if they failed to increase the government’s borrowing authority later this month.
First and foremost, he said, retirement and disability benefits for millions of Americans would be at risk.
“In a government shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time,” Obama said. “In an economic shutdown, if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, they don’t go out on time.”
More than 57 million Americans receive monthly benefits from the Social Security Administration. The average monthly check for retirees totaled $1,224 in September.
The president’s remarks followed a Treasury Department report detailing catastrophic consequences for Congress failing to allow the government to continue borrowing money to cover expenses. Not raising the so-called “debt ceiling” by Oct. 17 could trigger “a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse,” the report said.
A lapse in Social Security would be bad news for the 21 million seniors the benefits have lifted from poverty, and it would certainly disrupt the broader economy. A report by the AARP Public Policy Institute this week estimated Social Security benefits accounted for $1.2 trillion worth of economic output last year.
Bron, Oldman’s politics sure ended the love fest for him here, pronto. Sad.
I don’t know I still like Gary Oldman as an actor, just as I’ve always loved Clint Eastwood. An actors politics are irrelevent to me, though their bigotry such as with Mel Gibson does turn me off. Frank Sinatra was a vastly underrated actor and also became progressively right wing, why should I care if I could respect the performance. Accusation by supposition is a very poor technique particularly for an ace investigator.
Elaine,
Here’s a more balanced article on the matter that is free of the Limbaugh/Time-Swampland screed:
Will Obamacare lead to millions more part-time workers? Companies are still deciding.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/06/will-obamacare-lead-to-millions-more-part-time-workers-companies-are-still-deciding/
Ignorant “of the facts.” Big difference. “Intellectually” dishonest. Big difference. Do you really not understand these FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES? if NOT, I refer you back to OS’s “Victimstances ” comment last night. However, I will not do a middle school intimation that you are a sociopath, because you are not. I know sociopaths. And, when you have to deal w/ real ones you are cautious throwing that label around like some here.
If by “lost the argument” you mean “handed you your ass on a plate”, then yes, Elaine lost the argument.
nick,
More bluster from you. I don’t really care what you think of me. I would if I respected you. If people don’t agree with you, you accuse them of being bad, dishonest, ignorant, etc. Same old…same old. You’re so predictable. It gets tedious after a while.
I’m not hostile, I’m passionate when I see hard working people shit on by their leaders. Same old, same old. You lose the argument and then start lecturing. Nal didn’t put Mary on the poster, the union fat cat attorney did and the lemmings followed. Just like union members followed Trumka. The “proof” is what you don’t say. Either you’re ignorant of the facts of the rape of union members by Obamacare, or being dishonest. These is no other explanation. Basta. Let’s move on, plus baseball is about to start. Much more important than these discussions, IMO.
nick,
“This all comes back to Mary, and how she is just a poster child to get union fat cats more pawns to pay dues.’
If you feel so strongly about “Mary” being used as a poster child, address that comment to Nal. He’s the one who wrote this post.
nick,
I wrote: “I know there is concern among union leaders and members that some employers might cut workers’ hours in order not to have to provide them with health insurance–among other concerns.”
Lose your hostile attitude and stop accusing me of things for which you have no proof. I’m not required to respond to every comment you leave for me. Try to maintain your cool–and stop acting like a petulant child.
It’s not merely about the hours, that’s just part of it. Union members, who have given up salary for Cadillac healthcare plans, were told they were protected. They are not. In order to retain them, union members must pay an exorbitant tax and they still may not be the plans they had. Geez, you really don’t understand the ramifications @ all. I guess your plan is protected? The union people getting screwed are the blue collar people, you know the people that always get screwed, by the shop boss, the union boss, and pols. Stop this Romneycare screed, that is not the issue. FOCUS. “There’s concern” CONCERN, THERE’S UNDERSTANDABLE OUTRAGE. Your union brothers got screwed and you’re defending the pols and union fat cats who screwed them. This all comes back to Mary, and how she is just a poster child to get union fat cats more pawns to pay dues. You are intellectually dishonest, @ best, on this.