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Started 2 years ago by Tenzo
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rus

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Coremodels said:
Actually, if companies start cutting employees hours and using other methods to skirt providing them adequate compensation or employment benefits, you'll probably see exactly that.

I can think of no better way to bolster the ranks of unions actually.

Hey, there ya go. Next business opportunity when that OSHA compliance thing dries up.

Gram has a point about that "adequate compensation" though. If costs per employee are rising then that will affect hiring, retention and hours.

Put another way: would you be happier if, say, 10% of the people in question were fired outright?

Posted 3 months ago #
gramarye
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Coremodels said:
Actually, if companies start cutting employees hours and using other methods to skirt providing them adequate compensation or employment benefits, you'll probably see exactly that.

I can think of no better way to bolster the ranks of unions actually.

So the government makes hiring more expensive, forcing businesses to cut hiring and hours, and the solution is to form organizations dedicated to making hiring even more expensive? A workforce unionizing will not give companies larger budgets to hire people with; only higher revenues will do that. Faced with both hostile government action and hostile private action (assuming, as your hypothetical does, that the union is organized specifically to confront the employer over wages and benefits--which does seem to be the case more often than not, though one could conceive and wish for a more productive and less parasitical role for unions to play), why would an employer stay here and build his house on quicksand?

Also, unions' major weapon was not the solidarity of their own membership, or even their power in Washington in times of Democratic ascendancy. It was the solidarity of others outside their union--other citizens who would simply not cross a picket line to patronize a business with a striking workforce. Maybe some people still express that kind of support for the labor movement, but by and large, the public image of the labor movement has degraded significantly over the past few decades, and the image of many parts of corporate America is much improved. (The financial sector still gets a fair amount of well-deserved opprobrium, and some individual companies like Wal-Mart are polarizing, with many supporters and detractors, but Apple is the biggest company in the world right now, is nonunionized, and everyone seems to have a pretty good impression of it.)

Posted 3 months ago #
Coremodels
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gramarye said:
So the government makes hiring more expensive, forcing businesses to cut hiring and hours, and the solution is to form organizations dedicated to making hiring even more expensive?

Unfortunately, you could have applied this logic to anything from establishing a minimum wage to implementing workplace safety regulations.

They all made employment more expensive, businesses were resistant and attempted to avoid compliance or incurring more cost if possible.

Fact is, businesses have other avenues to increase income and offset the cost of providing healthcare for their employees than firing people or cutting hours.

I think the Papa John's pinhead who claimed that he'd either have to increase his pizza price by like 4 and a half cents a pizza or fire people (while giving away 2 million pizzas, btw)to avoid Obamacare, so he chose firing people... pretty much embodies this.

Posted 3 months ago #
kit444
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gramarye said:
Faced with both hostile government action and hostile private action (assuming, as your hypothetical does, that the union is organized specifically to confront the employer over wages and benefits--which does seem to be the case more often than not, though one could conceive and wish for a more productive and less parasitical role for unions to play), why would an employer stay here and build his house on quicksand?

It's proper for employers to maximize revenues but parasitical for employees to try to do the same?

Maybe some people still express that kind of support for the labor movement, but by and large, the public image of the labor movement has degraded significantly over the past few decades, and the image of many parts of corporate America is much improved. (The financial sector still gets a fair amount of well-deserved opprobrium, and some individual companies like Wal-Mart are polarizing, with many supporters and detractors, but Apple is the biggest company in the world right now, is nonunionized, and everyone seems to have a pretty good impression of it.)

I'm not sure how strong of an impression of Apple the workers in China making iGadgets have.

Posted 3 months ago #
Coremodels
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BTW, interesting article predating this one discussing how Adjunct Faculty are already building strength in numbers.

Growing numbers of adjuncts make themselves more visible. They push for roles in governance, better pay and working conditions, and recognition for work well done. And they do so at institutions where tenured faculty, although now in the minority, are still the power brokers.

http://chronicle.com/article/Adjuncts-Build-Strength-in/135520/

Posted 3 months ago #
tdziemia
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kit444 said:
Don't most adjunct professors have other jobs (and possibly coverage under that primary job)?
I know some do, but I don't know if a majority do. Certainly the ones who were working more than 30 hours per week before have to be the ones who were less likely to have other jobs. We have attorneys at my firm that are adjunct faculty at UA's law school, but they certainly aren't working 30 hours a week at the law school. I would imagine it's the same for adjunct faculty that come in from medicine, business, and engineering day jobs as well.

Hmmm ... let's see ... I teach 12 "contact hours" per week. That means I am in class 7 hours a week and in lab 5 hours per week. I also spend 6 hours per week available for office hours (not paid). On top of that, I need to design homework problems and grade them. I need to design exams and grade them. I need to grade lab reports. I need to prepare lectures for the course(s) I am teaching for the first time
This is the life of an adjunct. You don't get paid for anything but the hours you show up in the classroom (12 hrs per week). If you are sick, you don't get paid. I do not have health insurance from any other place. I spend at lest 30 hrs/week, and get paid for 12.

I don't know if this is the norm, but since this is CU we don't need statistics ... sometimes a personal anecdote is just fine. So, that's mine. This is what you get in secondary education (oh, this is not English ... this is science).

Questions, class?

Posted 3 months ago #
tdziemia
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So, to embellish a bit ...

An adjunct who has a "real job" is doing the adjuct role to monetize a hobby or passion. Or, they are doing it to pay alimony. They are NOT doing it as a real income stream.

Because the hourly adjunct rate (after taking into account preparation, grading, etc) for a well qualified lawyer or engineer is one fifth to one tenth what they earn in their day job, and with very few benefits.

Posted 3 months ago #
kit444
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tdziemia said:
So, to embellish a bit ...

An adjunct who has a "real job" is doing the adjuct role to monetize a hobby or passion. Or, they are doing it to pay alimony. They are NOT doing it as a real income stream.

Because the hourly adjunct rate (after taking into account preparation, grading, etc) for a well qualified lawyer or engineer is one fifth to one tenth what they earn in their day job, and with very few benefits.

Would you prefer health benefits or more underpaid hours?

Posted 3 months ago #
tdziemia
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You gotta be kidding.

How old are you?

Adjunct pays 80% less than my last job. Not even including the value of the health insurance.

Posted 3 months ago #
pez

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kit444 said:
Would you prefer health benefits or more underpaid hours?

A no cost wish would be for adjuncts to not be treated like second class citizens by staff.

Posted 3 months ago #
kit444
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tdziemia said:
You gotta be kidding.

How old are you?

Adjunct pays 80% less than my last job. Not even including the value of the health insurance.

I meant that question to be rhetorical. I would prefer you get both. We got onto this topic because of the Wall Street Journal article implying that adjuncts were being hurt because of Obamacare's 30-hour requirements.

Posted 3 months ago #
gramarye
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And where will the extra money come from? From experience, it's pretty clear that it comes from jacking up tuition still further on students (who have even less respected a voice on campus than adjuncts). You can say that they could cut money from the university president's salary, but even in universities where the president makes $1m, even slashing it to zero wouldn't cover the cost of health insurance for adjuncts. (Also, to the extent that they could save any on personnel costs from the personnel at the top--and I'm sure they could, as I'm no defender of the bloated university bureaucracies that seem endemic these days--I'd personally prefer to see the students get a break.)

Posted 3 months ago #
Coremodels
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That particular University seems to have an unusually high percentage of adjunct to begin with, a measure I'm sure was designed as a cost cutting device. So, yes, I would say that instead of cutting further into the staff's hours and income, perhaps a small tuition increase to offer health coverage for their full time employees may be in order.

Posted 3 months ago #
gramarye
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We're going to differ dramatically on anything that results in an argument favoring more tuition increases. Tuition should be half what it is or less at Ohio's public colleges and universities (and most probably those in other states as well), and if that means some personnel have to be shed entirely, so be it.

Posted 3 months ago #
kit444
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gramarye said:
And where will the extra money come from? From experience, it's pretty clear that it comes from jacking up tuition still further on students (who have even less respected a voice on campus than adjuncts). You can say that they could cut money from the university president's salary, but even in universities where the president makes $1m, even slashing it to zero wouldn't cover the cost of health insurance for adjuncts. (Also, to the extent that they could save any on personnel costs from the personnel at the top--and I'm sure they could, as I'm no defender of the bloated university bureaucracies that seem endemic these days--I'd personally prefer to see the students get a break.)

That's up to the administration of the school and what its priorities may be. Offer health insurance to its adjuncts and possibly take the potential hit with a tuition increase. The school referenced seems to have made the other choice. This is an overlap between the labor thread, but what's wrong with these employees wanting better pay and benefits? You operate on the assumption that every enterprise is on the breaking point and if the employees want more it will inevitably lead to organizational collapse. When you were in law school, did you fume over the cost of your tuition and the fact some of it went to pay the health insurance of your professors?

Posted 3 months ago #
joev
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gramarye said:
And where will the extra money come from? From experience, it's pretty clear that it comes from jacking up tuition still further on students (who have even less respected a voice on campus than adjuncts). You can say that they could cut money from the university president's salary, but even in universities where the president makes $1m, even slashing it to zero wouldn't cover the cost of health insurance for adjuncts. (Also, to the extent that they could save any on personnel costs from the personnel at the top--and I'm sure they could, as I'm no defender of the bloated university bureaucracies that seem endemic these days--I'd personally prefer to see the students get a break.)

Architecture projects.

Posted 3 months ago #
gramarye
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kit444 said:
That's up to the administration of the school and what its priorities may be. Offer health insurance to its adjuncts and possibly take the potential hit with a tuition increase. The school referenced seems to have made the other choice. This is an overlap between the labor thread, but what's wrong with these employees wanting better pay and benefits? You operate on the assumption that every enterprise is on the breaking point and if the employees want more it will inevitably lead to organizational collapse. When you were in law school, did you fume over the cost of your tuition and the fact some of it went to pay the health insurance of your professors?

I was on a 2/3 scholarship at a school where the median entry-level salary for graduates was $160k by the time I graduated. I had less reason to complain than most. My personal situation (along with the rest of my graduating class at a top-ten law school), however, is not representative of most students', especially not at the undergrad level.

Posted 3 months ago #
gramarye
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joev said:
Architecture projects.

University funding does not always allow for that, because there are dedicated, segregated funds devoted to most of the most expensive capital projects (i.e., new buildings). They do that to facilitate donations from alumni who want to specifically donate towards the construction of a new building ("restricted contributions" is the jargon, I think, as opposed to "unrestricted contributions," which can go for anything). I make both restricted and unrestricted contributions every year, with the larger ones being restricted to scholarship aid (they have funds for that just like funds for new buildings) because I *don't* want to be paying the salary of a faculty member; I want to be helping the next kid from a less-than-affluent family trying to escape the sticks.

Posted 3 months ago #
joev
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gramarye said:
University funding does not always allow for that, because there are dedicated, segregated funds devoted to most of the most expensive capital projects (i.e., new buildings). They do that to facilitate donations from alumni who want to specifically donate towards the construction of a new building ("restricted contributions" is the jargon, I think, as opposed to "unrestricted contributions," which can go for anything). I make both restricted and unrestricted contributions every year, with the larger ones being restricted to scholarship aid (they have funds for that just like funds for new buildings) because I *don't* want to be paying the salary of a faculty member; I want to be helping the next kid from a less-than-affluent family trying to escape the sticks.

You realize that paying for professor salaries DOES help that kid, right?

Posted 3 months ago #
kit444
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gramarye said:
I was on a 2/3 scholarship at a school where the median entry-level salary for graduates was $160k by the time I graduated. I had less reason to complain than most. My personal situation (along with the rest of my graduating class at a top-ten law school), however, is not representative of most students', especially not at the undergrad level.

I have kids in college, so I understand the pain of undergraduate tuition. It's a tradeoff though, isn't it? Part of the reason your school is top-ten is the level of talent attracted to teach there. Talent attracted because of higher salaries and benefits.

Posted 3 months ago #