Adjunct professors from the USC School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) marched to the USC Provost’s office to deliver a letter requesting for their union to be recognized Wednesday afternoon.
Adjunct professors and Adjunct Faculty Alliance-UAW (AFA-UAW) supporters gathered in the SCA courtyard where James Savoca, adjunct associate professor in the Division of Film & Television Production, gave a speech to participants and supporters before leading a march to Bovard Auditorium.
“Being public, it’s the best protection you have,” Savoca said. “We’re doing the right thing,” he continued, adding that “we have to continue to grow.”
Participants marched down Watt Way and Childs Way before turning the corner onto Trousdale Parkway, with the group chanting phrases such as “tuition goes up every day, pay your professors at SCA.” Once the group reached Bovard, Savoca entered the building and delivered AFA-UAW’s official letter of intent to unionize to the USC Office of the Provost. The letter urges the university to recognize AFA-UAW and cooperate in “bargaining a contract that reflects the value of [adjunct professors’] contributions.”
“We don’t want to go through all the bull****, we want them to just say, ‘yeah, we understand, and we want to recognize you,’” Savoca said in a speech to the crowd after delivering the letter. “So that’s what we’re asking for. So plan A has been very nice and non-adversarial.”
The march follows the newly formed USC Graduate Student Workers union’s (GSWOC-UAW) ‘last chance picket’ on Nov. 9. The GSWOC has been bargaining with the university to receive benefits such as increased wages and protections against discrimination, and were set to go on strike on Nov. 28 if the university failed to negotiate in good faith. However, the strike was avoided after the union reached a tentative agreement with the university administration on their first contract on Nov. 26.
Approximately 75% of SCA’s faculty are adjunct professors, and prior to delivery, 74% of adjuncts had signed Adjunct Faculty Alliance-UAW cards, according to the AFA’s email.
The adjunct professors are unionizing after SCA began taking away second classes for adjunct professors, “often with very little notice,” which has reduced pay for adjuncts and enabled the university to stop providing health insurance to these faculty members, according to the AFA email. Adjunct professors are also objecting to SCA’s low or fixed wages, gender disparities, insufficient school-wide diversity and lack of a clear path to full-time positions, as well as adjuncts’ unpaid participation in committees, training and meetings.
In a statement to Annenberg Media, SCA said that the school “highly values our adjunct professors who are invaluable to our mission.”
“They bring a wealth of expertise, experience and currency to the school and enhance our students’ educational experience,” the statement continued. “We also appreciate and respect the direct, collegial, and cooperative relationship we have with our adjunct professors and their participation in shared governance. We do not believe they need a third party to speak for them. We remain committed to continuing to provide fair compensation and will continue to directly respond to their concerns and needs as they arise.”
According to the AFA’s email sent ahead of Wednesday’s march, “adjuncts love what they do, love USC and the students, and want to continue to provide the excellence both the students and the school deserve. However, USC is severely hindering the adjuncts’ ability to do their job with new and existing policies.”.
“As professors, we’re not gig workers,” said Missy Pawneshing, an adjunct professor in the division of Film & Television Production, after the march. “We’re working for this industry, we love what we do, we’re so committed to this school and the students here, and we just want an opportunity to really show that.”
Pawneshing explained that while SCA has “been making strides in terms of diversity,” the program’s current course limitations for adjunct professors decrease work opportunities and one-on-one time these faculty members have with students, while simultaneously stripping away protections — such as insurance — that many adjunct professors do not receive in their primary jobs in Hollywood.
“It’s ironic that you bring in women and people of color and non-binary [adjunct professors], and then you immediately say, ‘oh, but we’ll take away your health insurance,’ or ‘we’re not going to give you a chance to form these bonds and mentorships with students and with other faculty.’” Pawneshing said. “It degrades the academic environment, and also academic liberty.”
This decreased opportunity for adjuncts to teach courses, coupled with the removal of protections such as health insurance, further punishes adjunct professors who are already earning “laughable” wages, Division of Film & Television Production Adjunct Assistant Professor Todd Louiso explained.
“What I get paid this semester, it’s terrible,” Louiso said. “And there are all sorts of things that go along with that, and how much time that I put into teaching my students, because I love it. And I’m available 24/7 to them, I make that clear. It’s not just the classes I teach, but they can call me anytime, text me. And so that’s not even covered with the actual time I’m here teaching.”
Louiso explained that the university also does not cover fees for accommodations that are necessary for adjunct professors to work on campus, as he said that parking costs alone can add up to “a quarter of what you get paid as an adjunct.”
Adjunct professors at USC teach the majority of undergraduate and graduate courses, and are also advisors, mentors and often counselors, as the AFA-UAW email described.
“My mom’s a teacher, so I’m very much for better pay and better respect for teachers, especially adjunct faculty who take time out of their lives and their careers to teach us so that we can one day be them,” graduate film & television production student Benjamin Nestor said, explaining that adjunct professors “have experience that people who have stayed in academia don’t have.”
Recognizing adjunct professors’ unique roles in their classrooms, students from across SCA showed up to the march in solidarity with their own professors, including junior cinema and media studies major Alisha Merchant.
“I just think there’s a lot of things that make this environment really hostile,” Merchant said, “As somebody who pays for facilities here, and as somebody who expected to come to ‘the best film school,’ to have professors live here paycheck by paycheck and have to work two jobs and not sustain their families, is just really disheartening, and I think USC should do better.”
Sophomore film & television production major Ryn Daniel said, “I feel like there’s been a lot of conversation about how [USC] frames working as a professor here as a privilege, and that’s why people get paid less, but it shouldn’t be that way,” said Ryn Daniel, a sophomore film & television production major “It should be just people being treated with respect, and respect for the work that they’re doing.”
With officials across the university now aware of the union’s requests, AFA-UAW “wants to play nice,” Savoca said. However, if the USC fails to follow up, the union will “have to go to plan B,” he added.
“If USC becomes a school where you have to be independently wealthy to teach here as an act of service instead of a job that is meaningful employment, that’s gonna hurt our students in the long run,” Adjunct Assistant Professor in the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television Ivy Sunderji explained. “If they don’t pay us enough to actually maintain our homes in L.A., if we don’t have health insurance, we won’t be well enough to teach. We’ll have to leave, and that’s going to hurt the quality of the education, because we will limit the points of view that our students have to learn from.”