I had been working for CCNY as a adjunct lecturer for about 5 years…, not counting the years I had worked years ago. This semester (Fall 2013) I received a letter saying that the [department omitted] had not approved my employment for the fall semester. Just like that, no explanations were given. Now I have no income whatsoever and to make things worse, I cannot claim unemployment since it is well known that colleges hire adjuncts in semester basis, so they wouldn’t accumulate enough employment time to get any benefit.
I would like to add that even during employment as an adjunct I wasn’t qualified for any health insurance benefit.
Adjuncts work as hard as the professors, even harder for much less pay. They provide excellent quality of teaching and tutoring(at least all my colleagues in [department omitted] of CUNY do). They work odd hours and are loaded with work. Even without disputing the pay rate, the amount of money they earn is ridiculous because they cannot be given a decent amount of hours per week [because the colleges want to limit their responsibility to provide adjuncts’ with benefits.]
It is unreasonable for the workers of the intellectual field to be treated this way. Such treatment is expected in third-world countries but not in the US of A, which throws money left and right, but not where it counts. Shame, shame, shame!
To answer your directional points, I have not allowed myself to bring any grief to the faculty, and I have conserved any relationship with [my colleagues]. My work performance has not been affected from this because I follow my principles, but I can see why this would deeply affect the work performance. I have no alternative plans in place right now.
