Part-time instructors at UNO talk of unionizing

[Omaha Steve]

X post in Labor & GD

POSTED: MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2015 1:00 AM
By Kate Howard / World-Herald staff writer

The part-time professors who make up half the faculty at the University of Nebraska at Omaha are taking tentative steps toward unionizing.

The roughly 500 adjuncts at UNO are not members of the faculty union that represents full-time professors. But as a nationwide push emerges for better working conditions for adjuncts, a few in Omaha have started quietly organizing and drumming up interest.

Larry Bradley, an environmental geology professor, said a union is needed because adjuncts lack the same protection, comparable pay and professional development opportunities given to full-time professors. He points to a National Adjunct Walkout Day held nationwide last month — he wasn’t aware of any demonstrations in Omaha — as a sign that awareness is growing.

“If the students and parents were finding out the percentage of so many adjunct or part-time instructors doing the teaching, they would get angry and then get behind the adjunct faculty,” Bradley said.

FULL story at link.

Marta has a Masters in Management Information Systems and has thought of teaching part time after retiring.