We will not be intimidated: Fighting on for equity
By Alyssa Franze
Editor’s note: This is one of a series of personal accounts from nontenure-track faculty members working toward improving conditions for learning and teaching in our institutions of higher education. These posts lead up to Campus Equity Week and are designed to draw attention to inequitable and detrimental employment practices on campus.
For many professors and university instructors, the end of each term is a relief, a chance to relax, regroup and get ready for the next semester. As a faculty assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this was not true for me. Instead, as the final weeks of a semester approached I would become increasingly anxious because I didn’t know if my employment, and along with it my health insurance, would continue into the next term. My position was “contingent” upon factors beyond my control: the university budget, student enrollments, even management preferences.
Last spring my fears came true. In my 14th semester as an instructor in UW-Madison’s program in English as a Second Language (ESL), the program director informed me that I would not be reappointed for the next term and was unlikely to be in future terms. This past August she informed me and my longtime colleague Jambul Akkaziev that we would not be rehired to the program where we had taught a combined 13 years. We believe our jobs were taken away because of our union activism.
We believe our jobs were taken away because of our union activism.
I began working in the ESL program as a graduate student teaching assistant and then, in fall 2015, became a full-time instructor. Throughout grad school and throughout my time as a full-time instructor I also worked as a server at a restaurant in Madison. I like this job, but I maintained it out of necessity: My teaching wages were not enough to cover monthly expenses. Another way of putting this is that I waited tables part time so that I could do what I trained for in grad school and what I love: teaching.
The most important development in my life last year was when one of my longtime colleagues and officemates asked me to join our union. I did, and we started talking about our pay as faculty assistants. We knew it was low but were unsure how to respond to charges that it was the “market value” or “what we had chosen.” Then Jambul joined our union, too, and shared that when he transitioned from grad student teaching assistant to full-time faculty assistant last fall, his pay rate dropped by $5,000. And so we had a campaign: Fair Pay for Faculty Assistants. We were demanding pay equity with our graduate student colleagues.
I waited tables part time so that I could do what I trained for in grad school and what I love: teaching.
With our union and invaluable support from AFT-Wisconsin staff, we reached out to faculty assistant colleagues in other departments on campus; we presented our issue to many university committees; we brought our campaign to and got solidarity and support from the graduate student union at UW-Madison; we spoke to the press; and we won the endorsement of both student governance and faculty and academic staff governance on campus.
In the spring, after six months of organizing, we learned that the administration was raising pay rates for many faculty assistants for the next academic year and that this fall many of my faculty assistant colleagues in ESL would be transitioned to lecturer positions, a change that increased their pay by as much as 49 percent. These victories were the result of the work we did as a union. We achieved them without contracts, without collective bargaining, and in a state where the governor has assaulted labor unions; we achieved them through collective action and organizing.
Being involved in this work was transformative for me. I discovered that I have a labor union and established connections to that movement at UW-Madison and in the broader Madison community. I formed deeper relationships with longtime colleagues and new relationships with colleagues in other places on campus. Most importantly, I think, I found my voice in my workplace and in the UW-Madison community, and I found that I have a say in my working conditions and the working conditions of my colleagues.
Jambul and I no longer have jobs in the program where we enjoyed teaching for many years and where we worked to improve conditions. This retaliation for our union activism is intended to intimidate our colleagues in ESL and across campus, and it is intended to instill fear about joining our union and advocating for our own working conditions — conditions that are directly connected to the learning conditions of the students we teach. I don’t want to see this intimidation take effect and neither does my union. We are organizing around a campaign to end worker intimidation at UW-Madison. If you would like to stand with us, please sign and share our petition.
Alyssa Franze is a member of United Faculty and Academic Staff, AFT Local 223. She is currently teaching in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
