PHOTO/JACKSON COLLEGE, MI
LOS ANGELES, CA —This July, corporate outsourcing came to Jackson College, west of Detroit, MI. It became the sixth Michigan college to bring in EDUStaff to hire “adjunct” (that is, part-time) faculty. EDUStaff is a company that can do hiring and payroll for public schools and colleges. This is a warning about what’s in store for public higher education throughout the country.
The Detroit region once was the model for how to achieve the American Dream. The workers in its auto plants and unions won lifestyles which the world envied. Public colleges were built to serve their kids. But now the capitalists who replaced them with overseas factories and industrial robots are also replacing their educational systems.
By bringing in EDUStaff, these six public colleges get out of paying into the state pension plan for these part-time faculty. Full-time professors were so desperate to protect themselves that their Jackson College union agreed to let this happen. But full-timers only weaken their own power as workers when they let adjuncts be abused.
That’s because adjuncts are the majority at many campuses, like Arizona’s Rio Salado College, where 60,000 students are now served by only 22 full-time professors—and 1,500 adjuncts. EDUStaff started its business by taking over the recruitment of substitute teachers in some Michigan K-12 public schools. It now sees that the “new class” of adjunct professors is ripe for new forms of exploitation.
At the University of Southern California, the Delphi Project studies the changing role of faculty in America, but Director Adrianna Kezar told Inside Higher Ed that she didn’t realize how widespread the practice of outsourcing faculty hiring had become, when news of Jackson College’s decision broke. Most California faculty and staff are also unaware of how today’s developments in Michigan threaten their future.
The government-backed corporate takeover of public services in Michigan is a test of what is planned for every state and city. Every defender of public education should educate people about that, and help their class unite in self-defense: not as full-time against adjunct, or as Californians waiting passively until the events in Michigan affect them.
Steve Teixeira works at California State University, Los Angeles and is active in the struggle to defend public education.
