Non-tenured faculty educators at Wellesley College went on strike Thursday, holding signs and chanting slogans outside the College’s pedestrian entrance at the corner of Central Street and Weston Rd. In a show of support, members of the Wellesley Organized Academic Workers (WOAW-UAW) were joined by some students and tenured faculty. In all, about 25 demonstrators had shown up by 9am, and many more joined the protest throughout the day.
About 300 faculty members are employed by the highly selective women’s college. Across the board, 30% of non-tenured faculty members teach 40% of all courses to the 2,400-member student body.
The educators’ top three demands include maintaining a four-course workload for its members, instead of the five-course workload the College wants to see put in place; an increase in salary; and job security—currently non-tenured track faculty can be denied reappointment at any time for any reason. The union wants reappointment denial to be based on “just cause.”
Because of those looming issues, a strike has been a possibility for some time. According to the Union’s website, “Since May 2024, the WOAW-UAW bargaining committee has been negotiating with Wellesley over all issues pertaining to our work. Despite 23 bargaining sessions, spanning over 80 hours of face-to-face bargaining and hundreds more hours writing contract proposals and counter proposals, Wellesley College is still engaging in unlawful conduct which is thwarting progress at the table on several key issues, including wages, workload, childcare, and more.”
Dr. Marilyn Sides, a member of the English and Creative Writing department, and director of Creative Writing, holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, and has been a non-tenure track professor for over 25 years, “almost longer than anybody else,” she says.
As an elected member of the academic council that represents non-tenured faculty, Sides says, “We’ve talked to the provost, we’ve talked about the bullying that happens to non-tenure track people because of the power dynamic” but to no avail. “Basically the college saves a ton of money by hiring cheap faculty, who often publish, who have the exact same credentials as tenured faculty. It’s just been the business model for the college.”
Wellesley College in a statement via email to The Swellesley Report addressed in detail the pay issue, saying the College earlier this week “proposed a compensation package that represents close to a 30% increase in compensation for all bargaining unit employees (BUEs) over the next four years. This proposal would raise average salaries for full time lecturers, senior lecturers and instructors in science laboratory to more than $117,000 in the first two years of the contract.”
Specifically, the College says it’s offered an 11.5% increase in the minimum starting salaries of new lecturers (to $72,000 for these 9-month roles) and a 5.4% increase for new visiting lecturers (to $68,000). More information is available on the College’s unionization website.
Wellesley College seniors Miranda Christ and Christina Rim showed up in support of the strikers. “This semester only one of my courses is taught by a faculty member,” Christ said. “All my four years at Wellesley, the College has increased tuition costs. They have an incredibly high endowment for the size of the college, and it just strikes me as grossly unjust and unfair to the faculty that make our Wellesley experience what it is, that they’re treated as such.”
Tenured faculty member in the Peace and Justice Studies program, Dr. Catia Confortini, came bearing coffee and donuts on the chilly and bright morning. “I wholly support the Union, and I think that our non-tenured track colleagues deserve a fair wage and fair labor conditions.”
Being on strike isn’t for the faint of heart. In order to qualify for strike benefits of up to $500/week, participants must pull the equivalent of 20 hours of strike duty per week on the picket line, or perform other activities that support the strike. Slack off, and expect to hear about it from one of a dozen Strike Captains.
Wellesley College says it does not expect the strike to interrupt students’ progress toward their degrees. “The College is opening courses to students whose classes are delayed by the strike. We are confident that we have enough seats in these open courses to accommodate students, and that we have enough faculty to teach those courses.”
If the strike is still going in early April, Union members and supporters plan to be there, holding their signs high for the edification of visiting VIPs. According to the student-run Wellesley News, the weekend of April 5-6 Wellesley College will host the Hillary Rodham Center Summit which includes speakers like former state of secretary Hillary Rodham ’69 and Arkansas State Senator Breanne Davis (R).
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I was surprised to see the UAW involved. When I saw those UAW placards outside the Fiske Gate, I began to wonder if Wellesley College had gone into the automobile-manufacturing business.