Multiple Options for Multiple Realities: A Note to My Fellow Adjuncts

Tomorrow the ballots for the upcoming election to determine whether or not adjuncts at SFAI will join SEIU are to be mailed to us all. The time for voting will arrive for each of us any day now. There are hundreds of us, but as usually happens, a few folks have emerged in this fraught process of meeting and messaging who have taken on the brunt of organizing effort or whose voices seem to have been more conspicuous than others. I think it is important to recognize at this crucial moment that adjunct faculty at SFAI do have different needs and desires, and that we are not organizing to impose a one size fits all contract to replace the one size misfits all "at will" non-contract the present administration presently prefers. We want multiple options that reflect the multiple realities under which we are teaching here. Solidarity gives us the standing to make our shared needs and problems known, but solidarity is also supporting the needs and problems of our colleagues even when we don't always share them precisely ourselves. If there are adjuncts who have hopes or concerns that have not found voice yet here and in other places where we are organizing the only way to address such silence is to add your voice and make those hopes and concerns known. Above all, I trust we will all vote "yes" so that this process of voicing such hopes and concerns together is ongoing and can have a life beyond grievance and anxiety and a real chance of improving our conditions in the world.