Forum for Fair Employment Newsletter
Pre-TESOL Convention issue - March, 2009
RIP: COPTEC
Viva: FFE
The Forum for Fair Employment is the name we chose in New York last year when the decision to end caucuses went through and we re-formed as a Forum. The Caucus on Part-time Employment Concerns served us well and it’s in the same spirit that we continue. Karen Stanley has set up a basic public website at:
http://karen.stanley.people.cpcc.edu/FFE.htm
For new listmembers, note that we also have an archive website with all our email messages since 2002 along with many documents on the FILES webpage.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coptec
You do have to subscribe to the Yahoogroup (click on JOIN THIS GROUP and follow the steps) to access the different parts of the archive website. To get on our list serve, email Karen directly at
FFE at TESOL 2009
Karen Stanley
[If anyone knows of a related session not listed here, please contact and I will update the list.]
Be sure to drop by our booth (in Lobby B of the Convention Center) and to attend the sessions we are sponsoring or supporting:
FRIDAY
Academic Session (Friday):
"Big Steps and Small Steps-Making Progress on Employment Issues," will be March
27, 2009 from 2:00 PM - 4:45 PM in Room 206 at the Colorado Convention Center. The last hour we will move up to Room 708 for the presentation on Working Conditions in TESOL.
FFE Business Meeting (Friday):
The FFE Business Meeting will be, from 5-7pm on March 27 (immediately following the session on Working Conditions in TESOL), in Room 708 of the Convention Center.
Friday:
"Working Conditions in TESOL: Finding New Directions," March 27, 2009, 4:00-4:45pm, Room 708 in the Convention Center
SATURDAY:
"Supporting Adjuncts in Community College ESL," March 28, 3:00-4:45pm, Convention Center Room 703.
TESOL, 2008
Karen Stanley
My article summarizing the TESOL 2008 discussion group (led by Lara Beninca and me), "Tactics for Part-Time, Adjunct, or Contingent Academic Labor," appears in the latest issue (Vol 27, Issue 2, August 2008) of HEIS News. It is available for TESOL members (you will need to sign in with your password) at:
http://www.tesol.org//s_tesol/article.asp?vid=130&DID=11374&sid=1&cid=672&iid=11367&nid=2746
I will be happy to email a copy to anyone who requests one directly from me at
Thanks David
David Rives of Portland Community College has had to step down from the chairing our Forum David has been a strong supporter of rights for part-time and adjunct instructors and is working hard as the president of the faculty union at his college to both improve their lot and expand their rights. Our Chair-elect Carmen Roman-Murray has volunteered as interim chair for which we thank her. Decisions around officers of the Forum will be made when we meet in Denver.
Why We Need Fair Employment
This message was posted on our list-serve last September. Just sharing can be a support but more needs to be done! In obvious places names have been changed.
I am an ESL instructor at the Unfair University in Toomany Cities, Nonunion State. I currently teach 18 contact hours, with an additional 3 hours being added on in mid-October. I have not had a raise in 2.5 years. I teach almost double what the other ESL instructors teach and I get paid the same. I have no benefits, am on contract, I do not get paid for planning or correcting work (5 hours a week) and have to pay someone out of my own pocket if I am sick.
I received an outstanding teacher's award in 2006, have been published in Essential Teacher, went to international TESOL conference on my own dime, presented at the state TESOL conference and have reviewed proposals for the next international conference. I created two new interactive classes for the students in the past two years.
On the upside, I walk to work, have a schedule that works around my kid's schedule and take the afternoons and evenings to work on my own walking tour guide business. I am essentially working full time +, but with no benefits.
I need help. Should I just get out of this situation teaching at this college? I have been teaching ESL since 1993, but the lack of support from administration makes me want to leave a job I enjoy doing. I have asked for a raise three times. When I asked my new director what incentive do I have to do a great job he replied, "If you want to keep your job, you'd better." Afterwards he said that perhaps he should rephrase that..... I currently get paid $30 an hour. I feel overworked and underpaid, plus we get no respect because we teach in the continuing education department of the university. We are not considered staff or faculty.
By the way, how do I find out if I can get unemployment in this state? I have no idea who to contact. When I ask personnel, they do not even have me "in the system" so they would not give me any information. I never even knew I could apply for unemployment during our breaks.
Thanks for all of your help. I am trying to figure out what I can do at this point. Any of your suggestions are most welcomed.
Revised TESOL Statement on Employment Concerns
If you don't receive the TESOL Connections mailings, the Board of Directors has approved a new version of the October 2003 position statement
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http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/bin.asp?CID=32&DID=1302&DOC=FILE.PDF
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Position Statement on the Status of, and Professional Equity for, the Field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
The field of teaching English to speakers of other languages is a unique distinct academic
and professional discipline with unique linguistic, cultural, and pedagogical dimensions that requires specialized education and training. Those in the field often have the rigorous
education, credentials, and experience equivalent to that of their peers in English language arts and literature, foreign language instruction, and other related academic disciplines.
However, in many academic settings and institutions, instructors and faculty of English for speakers of other languages in both English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) programs are not respected as being part of a unique
discipline, and often do not receive the same professional treatment or benefits as their peers in other academic areas.
It is TESOL's position that all educational authorities, government agencies, and academic institutions recognize the field of TESOL as a unique academic and professional discipline that is distinct from, but on par with, other academic subjects.
Accordingly, TESOL recommends special and unique designation of the field.
In addition, TESOL is opposed to policies that treat ESL/EFL instructors and faculty
differently from their counterparts with comparable credentials in other disciplines. TESOL is in favor of commensurate salaries, benefits, working conditions, and workloads across disciplines in order to foster academic and intellectual equity and integrity in academic institutions and in society at large.
Approved by the Board of Directors
October 2003; Amended June2008
TESOL at COCAL San Diego, 2008
Jack Longmate
At the annual business meeting at TESOL 2002 in Salt Lake, a member resolution was passed in support of the conference of the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL). Presenting that resolution in 2002 were Nancy Mallette and Mary Ellen Goodwin, outgoing and incoming chairs respectively of TESOL's Caucus on Part-time Employment Concerns (COPTEC).
Since then, TESOL has supported representation at COCAL conferences at 2002 in Montreal, 2004 in Chicago, and now 2008 in San Diego. Whereas the action resulting from TESOL's COCAL resolution has been the COPTEC caucus, with the transition of entity structure, that task has shifted to TESOL's standing Committee on Employment Issues, with the balance of COPTEC involvement transitioning to the Forum for Fair Employment (FFE). Former COPTEC chair Mary Ellen Goodwin was one of the COCAL VIII's conference chairs.
For COCAL VIII, TESOL funded the chair-elect of its Employment Issues Committee, Jack Longmate, and the board liaison to that committee, Dr. Yilin Sun. Other prominent TESOL members/leaders attending were David Rives, chair of TESOL's Forum on Fair Employment (formerly COPTEC), who was one of the featured speakers, along with Carman Roman-Murray, who is both chair-elect of the Forum on Fair Employment and a member of the Employment Issues Committee. Both David and Carmen were very active and well respected participants at the conference, of whom TESOL can be proud.
As the discipline most exploited by the use of many poorly paid part-time positions in lieu of full-time positions, TESOL has a natural connection to COCAL conferences, the foremost gathering of those concerned with arresting the continuing erosion working conditions in higher education. Also attending COCAL VIII were Karen Brooke, an ESL instructor and a co-chair of the “non-regular” group for the Vancouver Community College Faculty Association and Richard Gomes, a TESOL professional who was also a speaker at COCAL VIII, from Rutgers.
All four of us TESOLers took part in a Friday session led by professional organizer John Hess. It encouraged greater personal and organizational effectiveness by becoming a better listener and through techniques to help individuals become better team players.
The Friday plenary featured such speakers as the president-elect of the National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel, and head of the California American Federation of Teachers, Marty Hittelman. A number of the practical workshops bore a TESOL mark.
Highlights from sessions included a discussion of unemployment for contingent faculty (during periods between terms when they are not working through no fault of their own) led by labor historian and activist Joe Berry, who was a guest speaker at TESOL 2008 in New York. In a session dealing with job security for contingent faculty, which featured the remarkable British Columbian model as presented by Debbie Hlady of Camosun College in Victoria. One of the speakers in a workshop addressing lobbying and legislative action was Dr. Keith Hoeller, who was a featured speaker at the COPTEC Colloquium at TESOL 2007 in Seattle.
Of great interest to TESOL's Employment Issues Committee was the subject matter discussed in the Sunday morning Plenary, "Globalization and Corporatization of Higher Education." Speaking were Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, who made a number of observations about U.S.-based educational entities that have launch programs abroad and the workplace standards of those exported programs.
Especially interesting was information presented by Larry Gold, vice-president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) for higher education, who discussed employment issues in the international workplace.
Among the points Larry presented were these:
In the United Kingdom, there was to be "fair and equal treatment"
for all term employees. After four years, fixed-term employees were to become permanent. However, oftentimes "special considerations" arise that are used to frustrate that transition: half of those who should have received permanent status in the UK did not.
. In Malaysia, higher education curriculum is being scrutinized, with
those courses of studies not job related are in danger of being defunded.
. In South Korea 32 percent of faculty have tenure, while the rest
have low pay, about $10,000 U.S.
. In Denmark, the European Union stipulates that discrimination
against those on fixed-term contracts is unlawful. However, there has been a very small decrease in fixed-term instructors, whose continued rehiring is justified as important as a "buffer."
Among the topics mentioned by Cindy Oliver, President of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia, was a resolution on Contingent Academic Staff that originated in her union and was presented to the Fifth World Congress of Education International in Berlin July 22-26, 2007 by the parent union, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). (TESOL was given the opportunity to endorse this resolution.)
Like TESOL, COCAL has a distinct international flavor, with English, French, and Spanish speakers, with translation. An active Spanish-speaking contingent of contingent faculty took form at COCAL, which, after considered e-mail debate, arrived at "Cocaltecos" as the term to identify themselves.
There was a surprisingly large group from British Columbia in attendance at COCAL, which is remarkable because, unlike the higher education systems virtually everywhere else in North America, part-time faculty are treated with respect and dignity, receiving "equal pay for equal work," job security through regularization, seniority (which is the primary basis upon which work assignments are issued). The British Columbia model has inspired legislation in the states of California and Washington, and while TESOL cannot claim to have discovered the British Columbia model, TESOL and our own COPTEC has helped get word out.
At the COPTEC Colloquium at TESOL 2000 in Vancouver, after the panelist had finished making their statements and questions/comments were entertained from the audience, a gentleman, who had been standing in the back and patiently raising his hand for some time, was finally called upon. After saying a few words, all U.S. based panelists were so stunned as to be speechless. Karen Stanley was the first COPTEC panelist to have the presence of mind to ask Frank Cosco to come up and repeat what he had just said into the mic. He was describing the sort of workplace provisions that part-time advocates in the United States could only dream about (where part-time and full-time faculty are on the same pay scale (so those teaching at 33% or 50% of full-time are paid 33% or 50% of the pay); where after two-years of teaching at 50% of full-time, probationary faculty become "regularized" and receive the attendant job security (right of first refusal, right of accrual); where seniority is the primary factor in determining work assignments, not full-time or part-time status; and how part-time and full-time faculty can accrue seniority at the same rate, and how part-time faculty can be more senior to full-time faculty), all of which are virtually unheard of in the United States.
Less than a year later, at COCAL IV in San Jose, CA, in January 2001, the same British Columbian shock effect took place, this time delivered by Linda Sperling a staff representative of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia. Mary Ellen Goodwin, who was present at that moment and who would later become chair of TESOL's COPTEC, related how Linda's comments stole the show at COCAL IV.