They turned college into McDonald’s: Adjunct professors, fast-food wages and how colleges screw more than just students - Salon.com

They turned college into McDonald’s: Adjunct professors, fast-food wages and how colleges screw more than just students - Salon.com:

They turned college into McDonald’s: Adjunct professors, fast-food wages and how colleges screw more than just students

Adjunct professors are joining the fight for a living wage -- and show us all education isn't a guarantee of a job

 The fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 has already had an enormous impact on American politics. It hasn’t been reflected in national legislation, of course. With Congress in the hands of flat-earthers, the federal minimum wage is still stuck at less than half that—$7.25, the level it reached in 2009, as a result of legislation passed in 2007.

But what first registered as a surprising anomaly—a one-day strike in New York City involving just over 100 workers on Black Friday, Nov. 29, 2012—has come to serve as a focal point for articulating demands for a dignified living wage, not just for fast-food workers, but for everyone who works for a living. What began as a movement of those holding “McJobs” is now brimming over with new participants making the point that virtually all jobs nowadays are, or at least can be, McJobs—even the latest to join in with demonstrations held on April 15: adjunct college professors.

The build-up to this point has been remarkably swift, even as the rest of the political system seems paralyzed. After a brief lull to lay further groundwork, NYC fast-food workers held a second strike on April 4, 2013, the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, while supporting the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike. Covering the strike for Salon, Josh Eidelson made a number of key points. First, that far from being peripheral, fast food jobs represent a de facto employment paradigm for today’s America:

Fast food is becoming an ever-larger and more representative sector of the U.S. economy. “We should think of these jobs as the norm,” said Columbia University political scientist Dorian Warren, “because even when you look at the high-skilled, high-paying jobs, they’re even adopting the low-wage model” of management. That means erratic schedules, paltry benefits, and – so far – almost no unions. “These are the quintessential example of the kinds of jobs that we have now,” said Warren, “and of the kind of job that we can expect in the future for the next few decades.”

Eidelson also discussed how the changing nature of work required changing labor strategies as well, and gave a hint of what was to come in the way of further actions:

A parallel effort is underway in Chicago, where workers are also demanding $15 an hour and unionization without intimidation, but so far haven’t gone on strike. While New York’s and Chicago’s are the only ones to go public so far, similar organizing efforts are underway elsewhere as well.

Finally, he quoted a prescient message of support from then-mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio,“Fast Food Forward is fighting for solutions for working people right here and now, and it deserves the support of all New Yorkers.”

From there, movement spread rapidly through a series of widening one-day strikes in 2013—Chicago on April 23, then St. Louis on May 8, followed swiftly by Detroit on May 10, then Milwaukee on May 15, and Seattle on May 30, culminating in a seven-city strike on July 29,  after which organizers gave Salon a heads-up on the massive expansion to come, which was quickly fulfilled by a 58-city strike on Aug. 29, and has continued spreading ever since. It’s certainly no accident that a growing list of cities have either approved or are considering local minimum wage laws at or even beyond the $15 level. The idea of what a minimum wage can and should be has been radically transformed in a remarkably short period of time.

There are, of course, counter-arguments. But in a way, that’s the point: The “Fight for 15” has set the agenda, put forth the argument for others to respond to. One such response has been to renew old attacks on the very idea of a minimum wage. The minimum wage is for losers, the argument goes. It’s intended for teenagers just getting their start in the job market, but anyone who’s been working a year or two and is still making minimum wage is only getting what they deserve.

There are plenty of counter-arguments to this line of thinking, and anyone seriously tempted by it should definitely read “No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City,” Harvard anthropologist Katherine Newman’s intensive study of young fast-food workers (my review here). But perhaps the simplest, most powerful counter-argument is the mere presence of a new contingent in the most recent wave of “Fight for 15” strikes—adjunct college professors. If you really think people are stuck in low-wage jobs because something is wrong with them—not the economic system—then how do you explain this latest addition to the fight for a humane living wage?

These aren’t just college-educated workers we’re talking about, they’re collegeprofessors, yet many of them live just as precariously as fast-food workers do. An online survey by House Democrats last year (more on this below) found that 55 percent of responding adjuncts had PhDs, another 7 percent were PhD candidates and 35% had masters degrees. Yet, many are on some form of public assistance—earned income tax credits, food stamps, etc. Some are even homeless. “In short,” the report stated, “adjuncts and other contingent faculty likely make up the most highly educated and experienced workers on food stamps and other public assistance in the country.”

SEIU, the same union that’s been the major backer of the fast-food strikes, has also been involved in faculty organizing as well. It has launched the Faculty Forward campaign with a three-part platform:

• Demand $15,000 per course in total compensation;
• Target bad actors in for-profit higher education;
• Make quality higher education affordable and accessible for all students.

The call for $15,000 per course may seem a long way from $15/hour—and it is. But adjunct professors generally carry massive amounts of student debt, and have invested They turned college into McDonald’s: Adjunct professors, fast-food wages and how colleges screw more than just students - Salon.com: