February 17, 2015
Adjunct professors at Boston University voted by a 2-to-1 margin to unionize Feb. 4, making it the fourth Boston-area college where part-time faculty have joined Faculty Forward, a part of Service Employees International Union Local 509.
Bayla Ostrach, who serves on the BU union organizing committee, said a top priority would be to change the current system of assigning courses, in which “you don’t know until the first week whether you’re going to have class,” even if adjuncts have spent weeks preparing to teach a course. Ostrach, a 34-year-old single mother, said that last year, her first at BU, she taught six classes in three programs but was paid so little that she was eligible for Medicaid and food stamps.
