Rope

I hope we all understand that, generally speaking, you can be let go as an adjunct (your contract expires without anyone renewing it) for almost any reason, except, really, one.  At least in Ohio, if you are let go because you are trying to organize, you have, for the most part, a pretty good legal case against your former employers.

The thing is, though, you have to have good evidence that you are being treated differently because of your union activities/affiliation (and not for some other reason),   That's not always easy to get.

One thing that seems to be on our side in all of this is that we are dealing with a whole profession of people who have gone without anyone questioning their behavior for so long that they do not have the proper understanding of what they can and can't say.  I think the phrase is, "give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves."

Because what administrator doesn't have that rope?  What anti-union tenured faculty member doesn't have enough rope?  Don't get me wrong.  Most of the people I  work with are on my side regarding the condition of adjuncts.  But those that aren't are amazingly brash and vocal in their opposition, and often to the exact wrong people.

Now, I think there's a moral in all of this.  You see, anywhere else, I think some HR person would have come around and trained people what not to say in order to keep lawsuits from happening...that doesn't seem to have happened in the universities, and I can't imagine it happening any time soon.  I don't think the faculty would put up with being censured.  As a result, there's this weird effect such that, the more open you are about your feelings towards organization, the more you invite faculty to voice complaints about you specifically on that grounds...thus insuring that you can't be let go without lawsuits.

The lesson here is that you don't want to operate in the shadows, because if you do, you can be quietly removed.  It's much better, strangely enough, to be out in the open with a giant target on your back.  When you're public, they seem to feel the urge to be public themselves.   That's bad news for them.

In other news, today sure was weird.  Be sure to ask me about it if you get a chance.