The context:
San Antonio College is doing some pretty shady stuff getting adjuncts to certify that they teach fewer than 12 credits whilst they teach 12 credits. The certification allows the College to avoid paying benefits.
The comment:
Starvation Wages, No Benefits
And if you decide to enforce the policy, courses will be cut, contracts voided, and these adjuncts will sink deeper into poverty. When would anyone sign such a waiver? Because for the short term, enough money to feed a family one more semester and keep from bankruptcy trumps the long term need for benefits. I’ve known that level of desperation way back when. You charge in on your white horses to end it, you’ll feel great about yourself as they sink even lower because of your “help.” The system needs reform in “head and members.” Unless both ends of the problem are dealt with honestly, you’ll just make more people miserable. Just love that business model infecting administrations today. Using adjuncts turns a dandy profit, but is akin to slavery. And some never want it to change.
The explanation:
Career adjuncts, hear me now: Get a real job somewhere outside higher ed. Crap wages are what we pay for part time instruction because if you don’t like what we pay, there are (inexplicably) ten more people just as qualified who do. I am absolutely not blaming you for getting into higher ed as a career and then finding the market flooded with people like you. I’m blaming you for staying in against impossible odds and then complaining about the crap wages. Let me allow Sam Kinison to explain it to you. He’s talking about starvation in Ethiopia:
“You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don’t send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, ‘You know, we’ve been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn’t BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it’s gonna be 100 years from now? IT’S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! We have deserts in America, we just don’t live in them, assholes!’”
There wouldn’t be adjunct abuse if you went where the jobs are. And they ain’t here. Sorry.
