Ithaca College

Following the overwhelming show of support from contingent faculty in last week's vote, the bargaining committee(s) for full and part-time contingent faculty will return to the bargaining table for two scheduled sessions this week. The committee representing part-time faculty will be looking for the administration to move beyond rhetoric about bargaining and to actually address the fundamental issues separating the parties. To date, the administration has put forward 4 claims to justify their obstinacy concerning the faculty's pay parity proposals.

 1) The part-time faculty are temporary workers. Not true! The average length of service of part-time faculty at Ithaca College is 7 years. Many of our members have been at the college, year after year, for a decade or more.

2) The pay discrepancy is due to differences in the work expected from part and full time contingent faculty. Not true! The union has completely exposed this baseless claim. Many of our contingent colleagues who have taught as both part-time and full-time faculty at IC can attest that the principal difference between the work load of part and full-time faculty lies in the number of hours taught, not some vague “institutional involvements.”

3) The college is paying the market rate for part-time faculty. This claim is based on a highly deceptive regional market analysis, in which IC was compared to local community colleges like TC3 or Onondaga Community College, while institutions like Cornell, which pay their contingent faculty at a significantly higher rate, were carefully omitted.

4) The cost of implementing pay parity would require the college to increase tuition. According to our analysis, which is based on numbers provided to us by the administration, pay parity for part-time faculty at IC could be achieved through a minimal readjustment of the College’s financial priorities. If the financial organization of IC is so rigid that it cannot accommodate adjustments of half a percent or less without immediately raising tuition, we should all be concerned. We have previously challenged the administration to produce data to justify its use of the students and their families as human shields in their campaign to defend the status quo, but so far we have been met with silence.

It is time for the administration to stop making excuses, to stop disseminating misinformation, and to come clean with the campus community as to why they feel it is appropriate to keep this important part of the college's faculty in such a desperate situation. Why is the administration risking the continuity and smooth operation of the college to defend the indefensible? Why do they refuse to engage in a frank and open discussion of what is and is not possible at the college?

The part-time faculty will return to the bargaining table prepared to consider new information from the administration. We are willing to modify our positions, and to show the flexibility we've demonstrated through-out this process. But if the administration once again does not come willing to actually engage on the issues surrounding compensation, they should expect that together with our friends and allies we will continue to confront them on their refusal to respond - until they do.