Power Despite Precarity
A masterful look at the challenges involved with organizing workers in higher education. Berry and Worthen provide excellent recommendations regarding vision and strategy, making the book valuable beyond the field of higher education.
Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of Theyre Bankrupting Us: And Twenty Other Myths About Unions
Academic precarity screws over college and university teachers, partly via obfuscation about whether better working conditions are possible and partly by stealing our access to institutional memories of how precarious workers have risen up to win those better conditionsor something closer to themin the past. Who fought for something better? How did they define what better meant? What strategy and tactics did they use to make progress? What didnt work, wasnt worth fighting for, or wasted time along the way? Power Despite Precarity is an essential primer on these questions and more; a must-read for new adjuncts and organizers, as well as for movement veterans seeking a clear and coherent telling of the story of which they are a part, and some sparing but wise words of advice along the way.
Alyssa Picard, Director, American Federation of Teachers higher education division
Empowers us to fight for the higher education and unions we believe in, uniting theory and practice to chart an inspiring path toward labor and education justice.
Mia L. McIver, Ph.D., Lecturer, UCLA, President, University Council-American Federation of Teachers
Written from both an organizers and historians perspective, Power Despite Precarity is essential reading for anyone working in higher education who wants a better world and wonders what it takes. Berry and Worthen provide a handbook on how the growing number of contingent faculty can unite in common cause. While it is about education, many of the lessons dealing with internal problems inside unions are not issues confined to the education sector (alas) and I especially enjoyed those parts.
Elaine Bernard, Fellow, Labor & Worklife Program, Harvard Law School
This is not just an important book but an essential one for anyone concerned about higher education. It is impossible to separate the working conditions of faculty from the learning conditions of students, and Berry and Worthen explain how it is possible to transform both for the better of all.
Maria Maisto, President, New Faculty Majority
Wildcat: Workers Movements and Global Capitalism
Series Editors:
Immanuel Ness (City University of New York)
Peter Cole (Western Illinois University)
Raquel Varela (Instituto de Histria Contempornea [IHC] of Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon New University)
Tim Pringle (SOAS, University of London)
Also available:
The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy
Edited by Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Ellen Reese
Choke Points: Logistics Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain
Edited by Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Immanuel Ness
Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn and the Lives of Chinas Workers
Jenny Chan, Mark Selden and Pun Ngai
Just Work? Migrant Workers Struggles Today
Edited by Aziz Choudry and Mondli Hlatshwayo
Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW
Edited by Peter Cole, David Struthers and Kenyon Zimmer
Arise: Power, Strategy and Union Resurgence
Jane Holgate
Augmented Exploitation: Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Work
Edited by Phoebe V. Moore and Jamie Woodcock
Organizing Insurgency: Workers Movements in the Global South
Immanuel Ness
Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class
Immanuel Ness
Amakomiti: Grassroots Democracy in South African Shack Settlements
Trevor Ngwane
Workers Inquiry and Global Class Struggle: Strategies, Tactics, Objectives
Edited by Robert Ovetz
The Spirit of Marikana: The Rise of Insurgent Trade Unionism in South Africa
Luke Sinwell with Siphiwe Mbatha
Solidarity: Latin America and the US Left in the Era of Human Rights
Steve Striffler
Working the Phones: Control and Resistance in Call Centres
Jamie Woodcock
First published 2021 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright Joe Berry and Helena Worthen 2021
The right of Joe Berry and Helena Worthen to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 4553 6 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 4552 9 Paperback
ISBN 978 0 7453 4556 7 PDF
ISBN 978 0 7453 4554 3 EPUB
ISBN 978 0 7453 4555 0 Kindle
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America
Photographs
(pages 149154)
Buttons from contingent faculty movement, mainly from the CFA. 1b. Buttons and ephemera from separate contingent faculty movement campaigns since 1997 in US, Canada and Mexico.
Logo from the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, used from the late 1990s to the present in various campaigns.
Posters, buttons and news articles from the CFA.
Protest against massive class cuts and layoffs at City College of San Francisco, 2021.
Gary Zabel and Harry Brill, early COCAL founders, at UMass Boston in the late 1990s.
John Hess, circa 2005.
The CFAs Dog and Pony Show satire on management presentations and programs.
CFA San Francisco State University Action.
Jonathan Karpf and Alison McKee, Professor of Film Studies in the Department of Radio, Television and Film at San Jose State University and Chapter Vice-Chair for CFA with a Credible Strike Threat at San Jose State University.
The CFA at California State Capitol in Sacramento, CA.
Mayra Besosa (chair of AAUP Committee on Contingency and leader of the CFA from CSU San Marcos) and John Hess.
CFA Lecturers Council Meeting.
CFA leaders from various campuses, delegates to the Edmonton COCAL conference.
COCAL VI march in downtown Chicago to five higher-ed institutions to present report cards on treatment of contingent faculty.
Marchers preparing at Roosevelt U. Joe Berry speaking to COCAL VI rally before the march.
Joe Berry and Christine Pfeiffer presenting report card at Columbia College, Chicago.
Joe Berry and Frank Brooks presenting report card at Roosevelt University.
CFA delegates to COCAL VI, Chicago.
March stops in front of Harold Washington College.
Mexican delegation at University of Alberta, Edmonton.
