Over 100 faculty and students gathered in the George Lucas Building courtyard on Wednesday to protest changes SCA made to adjunct faculty working conditions despite the establishment of a union.
The USC Adjunct Faculty Alliance-United Auto Workers (AFA-UAW) — a union founded last spring representing part-time faculty at the School of Cinematic Arts — filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge to the National Labor Relations Board against the SCA Dean Elizabeth Daley on April 9. Joined with supporting students and United Faculty-UAW (UF-UAW) — a group of research, teaching, practitioner and clinical faculty currently undergoing National Labor Relations Board hearings to allow a vote to unionize — they marched to deliver a copy of the ULP to the dean’s office.
The AFA-UAW became an official union last spring. Robert Ramsey, an adjunct professor of screenwriting, said in a speech during the rally that the union has been at the bargaining table this past year, but the university has hit them with a “stone wall of arrogance and avoidance.”
“SCA is violating the law when it makes changes to appointments, policy and practice, changes which result in the elimination of second class appointments of veteran adjuncts during the bargaining process,” Ramsey said. “That’s why the AFA filed an unfair labor practice against USC.”
According to the ULP acquired by Annenberg Media, the AFA-UAW alleges the university has “failed and refused to bargain in good faith” by changing appointment policy, practice and eligibility as well as changing the teaching policy and practices without notifying the AFA-UAW.
“Contrary to the union’s allegations, there has been no substantive change in the School of Cinematic Arts’s annual process for making appointment decisions. We remain committed to continuing to bargain with the union in good faith to reach an agreement,” the university said in a statement.
Peter Gamble Robinson is an adjunct associate professor at SCA, according to his USC directory profile, but said he is not teaching this semester. Robinson, an AFA organizer, said USC is ignoring the law and making major changes without their consent. He said these changes include taking away classes, removing health insurance from adjunct faculty and raising the student limit for classes.
“Once we start negotiation, once we form a union, they’re not allowed to change anything,” Robinson said. “When they pack students into classes, that is a direct degradation of the teaching experience.”
For union members like Robinson, SCA’s changes do not just affect their professional lives — they affect their personal lives. During the rally, Robinson shared a story of how health insurance saved his daughter from dying at seven months old.
“[My daughter] died in front of me, and I had to do CPR,” Robinson said. “She came back. We found out that she had a rare heart condition, she went and she had surgery, which we could do because we had health insurance.”
Robinson told another story, this one taking place after USC took away health insurance from adjunct faculty, which the AFA-UAW is demanding back through bargaining. Garth Twa, whose health insurance was taken away, said he could not go to the hospital while feeling sick.
A friend checking up on him forced him to go to the hospital, and upon arriving, Twa was told he had bone marrow cancer. The doctors told him they had never seen somebody so sick who had not had a heart attack.
“[Twa] had to have a bone marrow transplant,” Robinson said. “He can’t be here today because he’s in 100 days of quarantine. When he tried to get on disability, it was delayed because USC is holding it up. How the fuck do you become the villain of that story?”
Ruth Fowler, a third-year MFA production student, also gave a speech at the rally representing students.
“The illegal changes that Dean Daley is making will devalue our degrees, they’ll isolate students, they’ll create an enormous gap between students and the industry,” Fowler said. “These changes will mean that those entering the school in fall 2025 will be paying a fuck lot of money to get an experience which fucking sucks.”
Michael Bodie, an associate professor of cinematic practice at the School of Cinematic Arts and also an organizer for UF-UAW, said the university should negotiate in good faith and roll back the changes SCA has made to adjunct professor working conditions.
“This is a place of learning, a place of supporting all different types of people and all their different needs, but the university, when the rubber hits the road, chooses not to support their faculty and follow the laws that are in place,” Bodie said. “I find that really surprising, disappointing and wish that they would just play by the rules.”
Bodie also said faculty should be supported, not just for their sake, but also for students.
“We believe that any of the improvements that we make to the working conditions of faculty improve the learning conditions for the students and improve the overall quality of the education, the research, the clinical work, the creative work that happens on this campus,” Bodie said.
Robinson also used the example of the New York Film Academy, saying that parents’ lawsuits were the spark that caused the academy to change its educational culture. With USC being one of the most expensive universities in the U.S., Robinson says parents should expect their kids to get the highest quality education, which he does not feel the school currently offers.
“Change isn’t just going to come from professors. Change comes when people band together and they demand change,” Robinson said. “I believe that the students have to ask for better education and the parents have to ask for better education as well.”