MontCo Profs Organize

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
Adjunct professors at Montgomery College filed for a union election last Thursday. "We're thrilled to be taking this historic and momentous step," said Victoria Baldassano, a member of the campaign's organizing committee. "So many of my talented colleagues love to teach, but don't know how much longer they can afford to work here," said Baldassano. "We look forward to sitting down with the County Council and working toward a solution that attracts and retains great professors for Montgomery County." The professors - who are organizing with SEIU Local 500 -- hope to hold their election before the end of the spring semester. "These teachers are an essential part of the county's commitment to excellence in higher education and therefore deserve to have a voice at the college, as well as at the County Council," said Merle Cuttitta, the president of SEIU Local 500. In what is now a standard practice among colleges and universities, the majority of Montgomery College's professors are part-time and have no medical benefits.  Regardless of how long an adjunct professor teaches at the college, they are not guaranteed a contract renewal and there's often an enormous per-course pay disparity between the adjuncts and their full-time counterparts. Local 500 also represents over twelve hundred adjunct professors at George Washington University, the only area college with an organized adjunct faculty.