By Peter Schmidt
A national labor union that has made strides in organizing adjunct instructors in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland suburbs is starting a similar regional campaign in Boston and is planning one in Los Angeles, too.
Service Employees International Union developed its “metropolitan” organizing strategy out of a belief that, by unionizing adjuncts at enough colleges in a large, urban labor market, it can put other colleges in that area under competitive pressure to improve their own adjunct instructors’ pay and working conditions.
SEIU’s first such city-focused effort, in the Washington area, has so far resulted in the formation of adjunct unions at American and George Washington Universities, which are private, and at Montgomery College, a public institution with campuses in three of Washington’s Maryland suburbs. Adjunct faculty members at Georgetown University are in the process of deciding whether to form an SEIU-affiliated union, and their votes are scheduled to be counted on May 3.
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