MSCA Demonstration Michael Burns
Staff Reporter
9/23/24
Faculty Members Rally Amidst Stalemate in Contract Negotiations
On a brisk fall day outside Fitchburg State University’s Hammond Street Level entrance, faculty members from the Massachusetts State College Association (MSCA) gathered to demonstrate their frustrations over a deadlock in contract negotiations. The primary point of contention is the treatment and compensation of part-time faculty teaching in the Division of Graduate and Continuing Education (DGCE). The faculty who teach online courses, night courses, and graduate working conditions have become a rallying cry for fairer compensation. Another major part of the strife is the plights of the librarians.
The negotiations, focused on wages and working conditions, have reached an impasse, with university administrators labeling the DGCE’s demands as “unreasonable” and suggesting “no achievable middle ground.” The union, representing faculty across nine state colleges, disagrees, claiming that part-time faculty deserve better pay and equitable treatment, especially compared to their full-time colleagues.
“We’re fighting for better wages and working conditions for all faculty, but particularly for our part-time colleagues, who are grossly underpaid for the work they do,” said Joanna Gonzalves, President of the MSCA. “When we put forth our financial proposal, management dismissed it as unreasonable. But we believe that all our faculty deserve fair compensation, regardless of when or what they teach.”
Part-time faculty in the DGCE, who teach evening and online classes, currently earn significantly less than full-time day faculty for teaching the same courses. This discrepancy has become a focal point in negotiations, with part-time faculty earning approximately 69 cents on the dollar compared to full-time colleagues, and that figure is expected to drop further without intervention.
A Fight for Fair Compensation
Linda LeBlanc, President of the Fitchburg State chapter of the MSCA and a systems librarian, highlighted the central issue. “They’re teaching the same classes, sometimes even at a higher level, yet their pay and benefits are drastically different. We believe that this inequality needs to be addressed. Equal work should mean equal pay,” LeBlanc said. Many part-time faculty members, often referred to as adjuncts, are forced to juggle multiple teaching positions across different institutions to make ends meet. These faculty members lack basic benefits such as health insurance and retirement plans, creating an unsustainable career path for those dedicated to teaching.
“Some of our part-time faculty have to teach six or eight classes [per semester] just to make a living wage, and they have no benefits or retirement plans because they’re classified as part-time at multiple campuses,” said Rala Diakite, Professor of Italian and a member of the union’s executive committee. “If we want our faculty to be fully committed to their students, they need to be fairly compensated and supported.”
Impact on Students and the University Community
One of the more critical aspects of the ongoing struggle is its potential impact on students. Faculty members argue that the working conditions of educators directly affect students’ learning experiences. “Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions,” said Gonzalves. “When we win fair contracts, our students win as well. Smaller class sizes, appropriate advising loads, and equitable pay allow us to give students the attention they deserve. We’re not trying to disrupt operations or harm students—we’re fighting for their education.”
Faculty were also quick to dispel common misconceptions about their profession. “There’s this old assumption that professors are making tons of money and living privileged lives with summers off, there’s this presumption of a lot of privilege,” said Lori Steckervetz, Outreach Librarian for Student Success. “But at regional universities like Fitchburg State, that’s far from reality. we just really want to be able to make a good living so that ultimately we’re able to be here for students… I think there’s also a lesson to be learned for all of the students as you’re entering the Working World of understanding your rights as a worker and the power that unions play in ensuring that whatever field you go into, you ultimately are able to work together to make sure you have good working conditions”
Librarians: Underpaid and Overlooked
Among the demonstrators, librarians at Fitchburg State University voiced their own concerns, pointing to unique challenges that set them apart from other faculty. Despite their critical role in the academic ecosystem, librarians are often underpaid and overlooked in contract negotiations, and many feel their contributions are undervalued.
“I like to say, sort of at every opportunity. My name is Olivia Rossetti. I am also one of the Librarians, at last time I checked, I am the lowest paid tenure track employee in the State University system. Um, and yeah, that’s what’s happening right here at Fitchburg State University. That’s our lived reality…We’re fighting for the base salary. The minimum that anyone could be paid Is not below fifty thousand dollars in a state like Massachusetts where the cost of living is just truly absorbent at this point in time.”
One of the main issues raised by the librarians is their 12-month work schedule, a sharp contrast to the nine-month contracts held by most full-time faculty. Despite working year-round, librarians earn less and have less time for scholarly activities, an expectation that is standard for faculty members.
“We work 12 months a year with no extra compensation, and we’re still expected to engage in scholarly work like research and publishing,” said Lori Steckervetz. “But unlike teaching faculty, we’re not guaranteed time for this work. It’s something we have to build into our already packed schedules, which is an unfair burden.”
Additionally, librarians are often required to pursue additional degrees just to remain eligible for promotion, a demand that many feel is unnecessary for their role. “I already have a Master’s in Library Science, which qualifies me to do my job,” Steckervetz continued. “But to get promoted, I’m expected to get another degree—essentially just a piece of paper that doesn’t enhance my ability to serve students.”
Librarians also spoke about their role as educators, noting that they, too, spend time in the classroom, teaching information literacy and research skills. However, unlike faculty who build relationships with students over an entire semester, librarians often only see students once for a single session. “Librarians are teachers too,” said Rossetti. “We go into classrooms, curate lessons, and work one-on-one with students, often helping them with major research projects. But we only get one opportunity to make an impact, which makes our role all the more critical.”
Despite their integral contributions to the academic success of students, librarians remain at a disadvantage in terms of pay and professional expectations. Their fight for equity is part of the broader struggle for better working conditions, not only for faculty but for all academic staff who serve the university.
Looking Forward:
As negotiations continue, the union remains steadfast in its demands. Faculty members are prepared to maintain their presence at the bargaining table until the administration offers a better financial proposal. Demonstrators made it clear that they have no intention of walking away from the fight, regardless of how long the process takes.
“We’re going to stay at the table until management gives us a fair deal,” said Gonzalves. “The ball is in their court now. If they want to avoid further disruptions, they need to engage with us in good faith.” Faculty members are also calling on students and the broader university community to stay informed and offer their support. “It’s crucial that students understand what’s at stake,” said Steckervetz. “This fight isn’t just about our paychecks, it’s about the quality of education students receive and the kind of university they want to be a part of.” For now, the union waits for the next round of negotiations, determined to fight for fair wages and working conditions that benefit both faculty and students. Until an agreement is reached, the MSCA remains resolute in its commitment to achieving parity for all faculty members.
Michael Burns
Joanna Gonzalves – President
Linda LeBlanc – FSU chapter president Rala Diakite – Professor Humanities Dept (Italian) Lori Steckervetz – Outreach Librarian for Student Success Olivia Rossetti – Instruction & Community Engagement Librarian
Yeah. So if you wouldn’t mind just uh saying who you are and what your role is in the MSC. What’s your name? Michael Burns. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you and Is so great. Well I’m glad that you showed up so my name’s Joanna gonzalves. I’m the president of the faculty and librarian Union to the state colleges, we have the msca and we represent nine different campuses and today we’re about to start negotiations with management over our faculty. Who teach you ever take out an evening course. Yep, or an online course yeah, grad classes so that’s a separate contract and while the faculty get pretty good the day, faculty get pretty good compensation and benefits. Not the case for our part-time faculty who teach in the evening. In fact they make about fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars. Less a course we think that’s that’s exploitation. And when we put our financial proposal on the table, to give them a raise. Management said that we were being totally unreasonable and we’re here today to let the Campus Community know that, you know what? It’s not unreasonable. Uh, right, our faculty, are our faculty and we believe they should be supported just like every other member on this campus.
That’s my spiel. Thank you so much. Uh, the chapter president of the Union here at Pittsburgh, I’m Linda LeBlanc, and I’m our systems librarian and our chapter president, Aaron campus. Um we’re actually under the day contract but we’re here in support of our dgce members, getting equal pay. Um, and equal working conditions. They’re teaching the same class sometimes in the evening but they actually are in the day and yet the compensation is different. What’s your name and the work’s? No different. Yeah, if anything The Graduate classes sometimes are more intense. Yeah. Because a higher level of expectation for the work. So that’s why I’m here.
Hey, would you like a like a picture of all of us holding signs? Yeah, that would be awesome if you guys
Thank you, thank you so much. Did you have any other?
Yeah, I had a few just a few more questions if you guys who would mind asking. Um yeah. How do you guys think that the current deadlock can kind of stalemate that we’re at now is going to affect students on a day-to-day basis?
Oh well, I mean one thing you should know about faculty and Librarians. Um, in general, um this is an underpaid profession. For the the credentials, the phds, the other juris doctorates that our faculty hold, you know, we’ve made a decision, we’ve uh, to teach at our public universities because we care about our students. It is not Our intention to disrupt. Operations on campus or to I mean any way impact students education? In fact we’re trying to fight for Your, rights? It’s like we want, and this isn’t the day contract. We’re trying to fight the smallest gas sizes, right? We want to make sure that faculty advise advising loads. Like, oh, you have 50 students who advise that would be like, 15 minutes in appointment. Yeah, we we believe that, you know, 25 students a number of advisees would be better. So we’re here, not only like the way we put it is, you know, our working conditions are our students learning conditions.And when we fare, when we win Fair contracts, our students win as well. I don’t know. Is anybody else there another? Take on that.
My name is Rala Diakite. And I’m part of the Union executive committee and I teach Italian in the Humanities Department. I think that for our dgce faculty, they very much love teaching, you students. And they just want to be able to stay and continue doing it. They don’t want to have to teach six or eight classes at a time. To, to manage to make ends meet. Um, and In in general. The the better pay, they get the more attention they can give to students.
So the happening is some of our part-time faculty, have to teach at two or three campuses in order to make a living wage but since they’re part-time at all the campuses, they don’t have any health benefits, they don’t they’re not part of the retirement plan so um They suffer another place.
And if, um, if the stalem continues kind of where it’s at now, what do you guys believe that? The next steps are for the union. So we’re at the table, okay? We are going to stay at the table until management gives us. A better financial proposal. Well, we’re not going to walk away from this fight and So, it’s sort of the, we’ll put the ball in managements right court. And we’re gonna see how they respond over the next couple of sessions. Yeah, keep it. You know, stay tuned. Maybe we’ll have an update. Maybe we’ll be back at Fitchburg. Yeah.
Hopefully, we’ll see that. Yeah. Um,
do you guys believe that? It’s important for the faculty and more So the students to kind of understand what’s going on, to be able to better support you guys.
Absolutely definitely. Absolutely. That’s why we’re here. Yeah, I think I think that it’s really easy. Um And I think, I think management and administration. Um, might see an advantage of students, not understanding the real life working conditions and there’s an assumption, an old assumption that professors in higher, ed are making like, tons of money and they have, you know, Summers off, there’s this presumption of a lot of privilege. But at our, you know, Regional Workhorse universities like Fitchburg State, we’re not here, you know, making tons of money so we just really want to be able to make a good living so that ultimately we’re able to be here for students and also at the end of the day, I think there’s a lesson to be learned for all of the students as you’re entering the Working World of understanding your rights as a worker and the power that unions play in assuring that whatever field you go into, you ultimately are able to work together to make sure you have good working conditions. So I think there’s a two, I think there’s a lessons, we learn, but also, um, you know, to understand the Dynamics of what’s really happening instead of those old assumptions, if you wouldn’t mind. Just, um, introducing yourself. I’m Lori Steckervetz, and I’m one of the Librarians. Thank you so much.
I like to say, sort of it every opportunity. My name is Olivia Rossetti. I am also one of Librarians at last time I checked, I am the lowest paid tenure track employee in the State University system. Um, and yeah, that’s what’s happening right here at Fitchburg State University. That’s our lived reality.
And so, that’s what we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for, you know, better working conditions, we’re fighting for, you know, raises that make sense. We’re fighting for the base salary. The minimum that anyone could be paid Is not below fifty thousand dollars in a state like Massachusetts where the cost of living is just truly absorbent at this point in time.
And yeah, to have students like you showing up and being engaged and being informed on those issues that makes all the difference. It means that you are invested. Yeah, in our lives too. Just as much as we are the best of yours.
So you guys think that inflation or the the contracts that you that has been received by the union has been kind of keeping Pace with inflation or has it not been relationship?
Okay what that was just like a softball. So um we’re also at the table right now for our full-time day, faculty and Librarians and they offered us over the next three years. A pretty good cost of living increase. It works out to be just over 11% over three years and it’s amazing. Well unfortunately for the part-time faculty. Who teach in the evening, their salary is actually going to go down when you factor in cost of living, they’ve only offered us a Three two, okay. So, and the discrepancy from the start, the what we call the pay, parity was already great.
And so um, here’s a, here’s a number to sort of sum it up and maybe concrete terms for every dollar that a full-time faculty member makes. They’re only making our part-time faculty are only making 69 cents. And at the end of the contract, it’s going to go below 65 cents. So we feel like that can’t stand and we’re willing as full-time. Faculty to come on out and fight. We’re fight for better wages. One of the one of the problems that I know our institution has a lot is kind of retention of first-year students. Second year, students, as well as Regional comprehensives.
That’s one of the bigger issues. We face is enrollment as. I’m sure all of you guys know a lot of the, you know, first first classes that students take here are taught by part-time professors. What do you guys think? That kind of the, the distaste that that sometimes professors can have for the universities kind of affect that when you know, their professors are kind of at grievances with the university and maybe are being pulled away from other things and maybe having to teach more classes, rather than having the quality of classes kind of increase, what do you think that guys? Do you think that plays a role in the retention of students?
Um, actually, I think our part-time faculty are some among our best faculty, right? They are truly doing it because of their love of learning that other faculty and Librarians. We have all these jobs. We not only We teach we do service, we have scholarship. But what I would say and I’m just going to lift up some of the, the plights of the librarian is while right? The full-time faculty work hard. We’re on nine-month contracts and we can choose whether or not we want to work for extra pay in the summer. All Librarians, work, 12 months a year and they do not have extra time in their schedule to I I think I read in the contract.You only get a few hours a week for scholarship.
We get no time as we can build it as we can build a can. Yeah. It’s not guaranteed. Yeah. So the contract requires us to do Um, work that you might call like research or, you know, whether it’s publishing or it’s research that feeds into what we do as librarians, like, programming, like programming, but while the faculty who are teaching, Um get built in days for doing research. We don’t necessarily get that automatic built in time. Plus, we’re asked to work a 12-month year. And typically, the Librarians pay is much lower than our faculty. So we’re getting paid, less to show up more often. Which seems counterintuitive almost a bit of a disparity. Yeah, yeah. And we’re also often we we also have some other uh things going on, that’s separate from the faculty and that Um, we are terminal degree. Is a master’s in library science. But we are often told by Administration through our contract that the degree is not enough. And so for us to either, get tenure or get or not tenure or to get promotions to get promotions, we have to essentially go get another degree. Okay.
Which is daunting
I don’t, you know, it’s not required for us to do our work, right? It doesn’t add anything to my work as a librarian. I already have all my credentials for that, it’s just a piece of paper. So that somebody feels as though I have achieved some level of second master’s degree right on top of the one we already have. So so there are within our own contract and I appreciate our faculty colleagues who are trying to support the idea that the Librarians should be at the same level as the faculty. Will you have your highest degree in the field that you need to do your work, right? And yet you’re treated like a second class citizen and, you know, our librarians, do you know you, when you think about what does a librarian do?Actually, I’ve learned so much. You know, you get the Librarians people who out front, helping you find books and, and maybe uh, locating resources, but a lot of our Librarians, their teachers too. Yeah. Right. I’m in the classroom teaching. Yeah. Like Classes a semester really? Yeah wow, wow. And then you working one-on-one with students who are engaged in research, projects, honors thesis.I just came from a research appointment. Yeah, yeah, yep. So we do a lot of the same things but we’re also treated very different. So so you have a couple stories in here, too. Yeah. Like there’s the, The Graduate school contract, the the, the dgce, the acronym. Yeah. Then there’s the within our whole time contract. There’s also a set of disparities. Yeah.
Did you mind elaborating a little bit on what you mean by when you’re in classrooms? Like what activities would you be doing inside of a classroom?
Sure. So we are invited to the classroom by faculty members. We are experts in information literacy, so Understanding how to find sources, evaluate sources, understand sort of, the meaning of literacy, this can be in the classroom. This can also just be like social media. How are we understanding the meaning of information?
Sounds critical to higher. Ed.
Yeah. You know, just like life in general these days being well, informed persons. Exactly. It’s a good idea, right? Yeah. So that’s that’s what our degree is in. And so faculty invite us into their classes to usually support some type of research-based assignment. We Curate lessons to support that assignment in collaboration with that faculty member. Um, and then we come in for one class two classes at a time, sometimes, more than that if faculty are feeling very generous with their class time, um, But it’s very different teaching, from what faculty? Usually do faculty, teach students over the course of a semester. They build those relationships with students, they develop that level of trust with students. We are guaranteed to see a student one time. Yes for that class period. And so it’s sort of trying to really isolate down what are these key skills? What are these key principles that I need to deliver to this class for them to understand for them to take forward.
If you take away, nothing else, what does that really essential thing and trying to create activities to put these things into practice. So I’m not just, you know, droning on and lecturing, no one wants that. Yeah. Um yeah. So that’s what teaching looks like for us a lot of the time.
Thank you so much. Yeah of course. Can I invite you guys up? We’re gonna we’re gonna plunk a line as management walks into the room and we’re going to greet them with the signs. Absolutely.
