Elderly woman hounded to death by greedy employer’s practices
By William West, LiberationNews.org
Until May, however, Vojtko was still working as an adjunct professor of French at Duquesne University and receiving excellent student evaluations. She was well-liked by co-workers and helped full-time faculty proofread their manuscripts. Vojtko had published respected pieces on the history of Pennsylvania, and she had been teaching at the university for 25 years, but was never offered any benefits because she was an adjunct professor, an instructor hired on a semester-by-semester, class-by-class basis.
Until the fall semester of 2012, Vojtko taught three classes a semester at Duquesne, the standard teaching load for full time, tenured faculty. Even then, however, she earned only about $20,000 annually with no benefits or pension. When one considers the amount of time adjuncts spend preparing for class and grading papers, they are paid below the federal minimum wage per hours worked. The average salary for tenured faculty is $120,000 a year. The Dean of Duquesne, who does no actual educating, makes $700,000 a year.
Although adjuncts have the same qualifications as full time faculty, usually a Master’s or Ph.D., they are considered part-time employees. Not only are adjuncts not considered for the professional protections associated with tenure, most have no job protection beyond the current semester. Even if an adjunct has a contract for the next semester, the class could be canceled if too few students enroll.
Nonetheless, in most states, adjuncts are not eligible for unemployment if the contract is not renewed or if the class is canceled. Most such instructors must work a non-academic job in case they lose classes. This writer lectured on film history as an adjunct, teaching at one school in Boston and another in Fairfield, Connecticut, almost 200 miles apart and had to work a night job in a pharmaceutical plant just to pay for gas.
Universities dodging Affordable Care Act obligations
Universities across the country have begun cutting courses for adjuncts, hiring yet more part time educators to only teach one class each, in response to the Affordable Care Act. The Act, better known as Obamacare, will penalize employers with more than 50 part time workers if the employer does not pay for health care for part time workers working at least 30 hours per week. If each adjunct only teaches one class, the universities can avoid paying both for health coverage and the penalty. Last fall, Vojtko's schedule was reduced to one class per semester, reducing her income to less than ten thousand a year. |