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May 4, 2010

Part-time professors unionize at community colleges

System's adjunct faculty vote to join state employees' association

By Matthew Stone mstone@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

AUGUSTA -- Part-time adjunct professors at Maine's community colleges opted to unionize Monday, voting 264-96 in favor of affiliating with the Maine State Employees Association.

Adjunct professors teach about 60 percent of classes in the Maine Community College System, according to the union. The union chapter, Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, will count 800 adjunct professors as members.

"We simply want what is in the best interest of our students," Mark Dion, an adjunct professor at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland, said in a statement. "We need to be treated as equals with the same support and resources full-time faculty enjoy."

Adjunct professors are currently entitled to no benefits, said Mike Sylvester, the Maine State Employees Association's organizing director. But with the unionization vote behind them, he said, the adjunct faculty members will turn their attention to negotiating their first collective-bargaining agreement.

That'll involve surveying all the union members "to get ready to sit down at the table with the community college," Sylvester said.

Maine Community College System officials declined comment on the unionization vote. But the system released a statement that said it "respects" the vote's outcome and the Maine Labor Relation Board's determination that adjunct faculty members are eligible to form a union.

"Over 90 percent of full-time employees with the MCCS are unionized," the statement read. "The MCCS has positive and long-standing relationships with the unions that represent them. We anticipate and look forward to a similar relationship with this new unit."

The community college system -- with seven campuses -- has seen its enrollment grow quickly in recent years, to its current level of about 16,000 students.

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com

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