Fordham, Adjunct Union Link Landmark Union Agreement to Catholic Social Teaching

This July, Fordham adjunct faculty and other non-tenure track instructors ratified a landmark first contract. SEIU Local 200, which represents about 800 instructors, secured a three-year deal that giving most adjuncts between $7,000 and $8,000 per course by the end of the contract. Both the administration and the union expressed pride in the resulting contract, which they contended would not just improve salaries for underpaid instructors but better integrate them into university life, ultimately benefiting their students as well. And speakers representing each side linked the outcome to the unversity’s Catholic values and witness. Fordham President Joseph McShane, SJ said:

In addition to the more tangible benefits offered in the contracts, we believe that the new contracts will better integrate non-tenure track faculty into the Fordham community and foster a work environment that will continue to attract top faculty to Fordham. I have said before that organized labor has deep roots in Catholic social justice teachings, and that given its Jesuit traditions and historic connection to first-generation and working-class students, Fordham has a special duty in this area. But the benefits of these contracts do not only accrue to the non-tenure track faculty: a stronger connection to students, tenured and tenure-track faculty, and the rest of the academic community rewards all of us in ways great and small.

Fordham University Lecturer Ashar Foley, a Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies who served on the negotiating committee, agreed. “I’m so happy to have helped bring this change in our working conditions,” Foley said. “By unionizing, we play our part in the Jesuit University mission of alleviating poverty, promoting justice, and protecting human rights.”