Vol. 5, No. 10
October 2018

VAWA of 2018 Not Passed by 9/30 Deadline 
 
by Helen Ramirez-Odell
 
The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2018 (HB6545) failed to pass Congress by the September 30 deadline. It would have expanded the current VAWA which funds services and shelters for women and their families who have faced violence. The new bill was introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and was written with bipartisan support to provide additional services to what the current VAWA provides.
 
HB6545 would increase funding for the Rape Prevention and Education Program and includes new protections for Native American victims on reservations, protections for survivors living in federal public subsidized housing, and better housing options for survivors who need to flee their abusers. Also, the bill would provide for a robust enforcement of court orders and an expansion of gun control laws - provisions that will save many more lives.
 
President Trump extended the appropriation bill until Dec. 7, 2018 so the current VAWA remains in place until then. Contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators to advocate for passage of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2018.
 
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Women's March at Grant Park  
March to the Polls 2018 was designed to honor first-time voters,  
especially young people and immigrants, who led the parade and had a  
chance to cast ballots at early voting sites in downtown Chicago
 
 
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Contingent Workers, Adjunct Faculty, and Working Women:
How Are They Related?
 
by Jackie Kirley
 
The status of contingent workers raises serious issues about working women in academia. By definition, contingent workers are hired on an on-demand basis. They are not a part of the hiring organization, receive less pay than full-time workers, and generally receive fewer (if any) benefits. The hiring organization saves on labor costs and derives greater flexibility by being able to expand or decrease its work force as needed with ease. In an academic setting, contingent workers who teach or do research are known as adjunct faculty.  
 
Adjunct faculty now comprise the majority of all faculty at U.S. college and universities, and women comprise the majority of adjunct faculty . "By 2013, contingent faculty accounted for at least half of all instructional faculty across all types of institutions, ranging from 50% at public research universities to more than 80% at public community colleges." [ The Shifting Academic Workforce: Where Are the Contingent Faculty? AIR15 Nov. 2016] For an analysis of the impact of the shifting composition of faculty, read the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) article containing background facts on contingency. 
 
Adjunct faculty are hired on a course by course basis, with no guarantee of employment from semester to semester. They suffer from low pay, often needing several jobs at different schools to earn a living, with long commutes between schools which can create very difficult work schedules. Job security does not exist: sorry, your class didn't fill, so we're cancelling it. Typically, they have no benefits and no access to health insurance or retirement plans. Their situation is so dire that Annelise Orleck includes adjunct professors with fast food servers, retail workers, hotel housekeepers, and other low-wage workers in her book We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now. They lack individual offices, sometimes even an individual desk, making it extraordinarily difficult to hold conferences with their students. It can be difficult to access ordinary office supplies,   even a bottle of whiteout! Given their precarious situation,   retirement can be elusive. 
 
Between 1993 and 2013 the proportion of all women faculty who are tenured or on the tenure track has actually declined from 20 percent to 8 percent, at the same time that the percentage of women who were in part-time appointments increased from 48 percent to 56 percent. Maria Maisto, president of the New Faculty Majority, a national adjunct advocacy organization, said, "There is still, amazingly, skepticism about the disproportionate impact of contingency on women and underrepresented minorities." ("More Faculty Diversity, Not on Tenure Track," Inside Higher Ed, Aug. 22, 2016)   The situation is even harder for women who are mothers. 
 
In its June 3, 2018 issue, the Chronicle of Higher Education published "Do Unions Help Adjuncts?" Its conclusion, after studying the effect of dozens of collective bargaining agreements, is that unions have helped adjuncts receive higher pay, more resources, and more academic freedom, but they have not moved toward the goals of increased shared governance nor did the contracts increase the proportion of full-time to part-time instructors.
 
The AAUP report suggests that cheaper contingent labor is more a question of priorities rather than economic necessity. Don't cut facilities, don't cut technology; instead, hire more adjuncts. That choice has terrible effects on the adjuncts themselves, a majority of them women, and bad repercussions for students and the remaining full-time faculty.
 
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Domestic Violence: The Work Is Ongoing
                                              
By Amy Laiken

Since October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, it might be useful to look back on how the understanding of and approach to the issue has evolved over time. For decades, domestic violence (sometimes referred to as intimate partner violence) was largely viewed as a "private family matter," which meant that the police and the medical establishment were often reluctant to intervene. There were even times when violence against one's spouse or domestic partner was viewed with humor. For example, a section of Ms. Magazine titled "No Comment" that asked readers to send in examples of sexist advertising, featured in its July 1973 issue a poster for a Michigan bowling alley that read, "Have Some Fun. Beat Your Wife Tonight." This poster was undoubtedly meant to be a humorous exhortation to husbands to achieve a better score than their wives in a bowling competition, rather than as a call to commit domestic violence. But it displayed a lack of awareness of domestic violence as the serious issue it was and still is.

As women's rights groups proliferated, the idea that battering one's partner was something to joke about, or not taken seriously, began to diminish. Luckily, few, if any businesses would display such a poster today.

Domestic Violence's impact the Workplace.
Another way thinking about the issue has changed is the push to increase awareness among employers that domestic violence can impact the workplace, whether an employee is victimized where he or she works or elsewhere. In an article by Roy Maurer on the Society for Human Resource Managers (SHRM) website, Janice Santiago, a former employment advocate at Women Helping Battered Women (now known as Steps to End Domestic Violence, a Vermont organization), said, "We really have to work on the workplace culture around this issue, so employees will not be afraid or embarrassed to tell HR about domestic violence concerns, and are provided the flexibility to deal with the issue."

Domestic Violence's Impact on Victims/ Survivors
For a better understanding of domestic violence in general and how it has impacted victims/survivors, I spoke with a social worker who has been working in the field for 45 years. She prefers to remain anonymous so as to protect the professional relationships she has cultivated over the years. I will refer to her as "A." She says that nowadays, there is less of a tendency to dismiss domestic violence as a private problem than when she first started working in the field, and credits the women's movement with educating the public about the issue and pushing for needed reforms. Over the years, "A" has seen an increased diversity among those working on domestic violence (in terms of greater numbers of African Americans, Latinx, and Asian Americans), as well as among those coming forward as victims. Some of the changes "A" has seen over the years have been:
  • The passage of  The Illinois Domestic Violence Act (1982, revised in 1986), which states that a domestic violence victim can petition the court for an Order of Protection, which provides protection for a victim for a longer period of time than a Temporary Restraining Order.
  • The establishment of school-based programs on healthy relationships.
  • The creation of protocols for police departments and hospital emergency rooms to help domestic violence victims.
  • A greater likelihood that perpetrators will be held accountable.
  • It has always been the case that domestic violence occurs in all cultures and socioeconomic groups, but understandably the difficulties of dealing with it are exacerbated if a victim has few financial resources. In recent years years it has become more difficult for domestic violence victims with lower incomes to access the help they need because funding for social services has been reduced over time.
 
Although "A" hailed the development of protocols for police departments and hospital emergency rooms, she emphasized that implementation and enforcement of them remains uneven. Even with some improvements, much work remains to be done.
 
1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
1-800-787-3224 (TTY)
 
The Hotline provides service referrals to agencies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  
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Meet Professor Rachel Tollett,  
Vice President of Adjunct Union of City Colleges of Chicago
                                                 
by Jackie Kirley
 
The City Colleges district is one of the nation's largest community college districts, the largest in Illinois, and adjuncts comprise roughly 60% of their faculty. The City Colleges Contingent Labor Organizing Committee (CCCLOC) is the union that represents them. Professor Rachel Tollett is its Vice President.
 
In an interview, I asked Professor Tollett if she came from a background affiliated with the labor movement. Not at all, but her family, from Arkansas, advocates for others. Her mother works for a nonprofit dealing with homelessness; her father serves as a Director of Development with the Salvation Army. She was completely unaware of the union until a fellow adjunct spoke to her about City College adjuncts being out of contract and their need for representation. He invited her to a meeting where she learned about the union and also where Randall Miller, then membership secretary of CCCLOC and current president, suggested that she run for Vice President.
 
As Vice President of CCCLOC, Professor Tollett deals with issues involving disciplinary hearings of adjuncts, investigations and interviews involving the City of Chicago's Inspector Generals' Office, and the college's EEO Office (dealing with U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission polices such as Title IX and Title VII). She relishes her job as an opportunity to sit down opposite a member of the administration, represent her colleagues, and offer them an official voice. Professor Tollett's contribution to their most recent contract was to describe statistical patterns in the disciplinary hearings so that contract language could be introduced that would clarify situations and make some of those hearings unnecessary.  
 
Despite some difficulties with vague language, Professor Tollett said their new contract concluded in July 2018 and sunsetting in June 2020 included three major gains. First, it raised the floor of the lowest paid faculty member in the bargaining unit to $870+ per credit hour, putting City College adjuncts now at the median of community college adjuncts in Cook County, where before they had been at the bottom. Second, it retroactively paid for the 5 years they were out of contract. And, finally, it shrinks the gap between the lowest and highest paid adjuncts, a feature that makes for more union solidarity. To read the entire contract click here. CCCLOC will resume bargaining in 2019.  
 
Adjuncts, like full-time professors, must have a minimum of a master's degree to teach at City Colleges. Rachel Tollett has dual bachelor's degrees in piano performance and composition, a master's degree in musicology from Baylor University, and she has recently completed her Ph.D. in musicology from Northwestern University. Some adjuncts experience collegiality and equitable treatment at the City Colleges, but that is not uniform across campuses. Professor Tollett feels strongly that when over half the workforce in a college or university consists of contingent workers, the administration and full-time faculty should acknowledge that these are people with equal training and preparedness and are worthy to be respected and recognized as such.
 
Professor Tollett says a goal never to lose sight of is pay equity with full time professors. As a union CCCLOC wants to emphasize that equity in their pay is not simply an issue of respect for them as professors but also a case of economic equity that affects student education and learning outcomes. Economic equity for teachers is instructional equity for students. If you want a vibrant, diverse, high quality graduate then give students professors who are intellectually challenged, financially secure, professionally fulfilled, and economically empowered to dedicate their time and resources to student success.
 
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Celtic Women Intl. Literary Salon
 
Saturday, October 27, 2018 - 12 pm to 6 pm
Irish American Heritage Center - Room 111
4626 N Knox, Chicago
Mother Jones at IBAM
 
 
1:00 - Kathy Cunningham presenting "Story Telling Through the Visual Arts
12:00 - Debbie O'Grady presenting "Celtic Tartans: Facts, History and Trivia"
12:30 - Maureen Garry presenting "A work-in-progress of a list of representative Celtic literary authors."
1:30 - Mary Kunert presenting '12 Patron Saints - 7 Celtic Nations"
2:00 - Theresa Choske presenting "Sarah Purser 1848-1943"
2:30 - Janet Bieschke presenting "Readings from her books Voices of the 21st Century: 3:00 - Jeanne Wrenn - Presenting " Concern Worldwide U.S.: Helping the World's Neediest Help Themselves"
3:30 - Virginia Gibbons presenting "Resilience and Love: The Powerful Women of Alice McDermott and Jennifer Egan"
4:00 - Special Program on Mother Jones presented by the Mother Jones Heritage Project (Margaret Fulkerson, Brigid Duffy & Elliott Gorn) - "Irish Rebel: Mother Jones, America's Most Dangerous Woman:
  • Margaret Fulkerson, presenting "A Reading from R. M. Fox, Rebel Irish Women (1935): Mother Jones"
  • Brigid Duffy presenting "Get Off Your Knees!": Mother Jones in Action"
  • Elliott Gorn presenting "From Irish Roots: Mother Jones"
5:00 - PUB BREAK to visit the IAHC Pub, grab a pint or cup of tea and return for the movie!
 
5:30 - Movie "Mother Jones, America's Most Dangerous Woman"
 
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WWHP Board members Margaret Fulkerson and Brigid Duffy are among the presenters at the 4 p.m. program on Mother Jones. Please join us.  
 
Illinois Labor History Society will hold its Union Hall of Honor dinner on Friday, November 30th at IUOE 399, 2260 S. Grove, Chicago. WWHP board member Katie Jordan will be one of the inductees in its Union Hall of Honor. http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/
 
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Last month's emailed version of the newsletter was mistakenly labeled "October 2018."  
It should have been labeled "September 2018"
 

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