It costs a lot of money to go to a public university like UCLA and
that tuition should help fund the salaries or
the pay of professors including adjunct professors.
But it turns out that UCLA decided to post a job that not
only requires all sorts of credentials that are difficult and
costly to get, the job would offer very little in pay, how much?
Approximately $0.
This story I wannasay It blew my mind but
as someone who's worked as an adjunct at Cal state Northridge and
knows what it's like to get a paycheck from doing that type of job,
it's not really that surprising but it's something that people should know about.
In the job posting that appeared this month on UCLA's internal
recruitment website, the university specified that applicants must
understand there will be no compensation for this position.
In other words, no salary, no benefits but
there are a lot of requirements to even qualify for this prestigious job.
Applicants must have a doctorate in chemistry, biochemistry or
an equivalent discipline and significant experience in teaching chemistry or
biochemistry at the college level.
Teaching is part of the job description,
three to five letters of reference are required too.
No, but, okay, so
later I'm guessing after there was backlash the job listing disappeared and
they tried to walk it back and make it seem like it was some sort of mistake.
I'm not buying that and I'll explain why in just a minute.
But first I mean you can't stop scoffing [LAUGH] [INAUDIBLE] so
I wanna hear what you think?
>> Look, man as much work as these people do to become coneheads in academia.
>> [LAUGH] >> The least you could do with all them
fancy degrees is give them a decent salary.
I mean these people put in hours and years of their lives
not being social, not having sex like, >> [LAUGH] you might be
stereotyping a little bit, just a little.
>> The least you can do for these doctoral people, these doctorates is give them
a little paper and UCLA is not a poor school, right?
>> Exactly.
>> Like this isn't some community college somewhere in freaking Timbuktu.
This is UCLA one of the most prestigious schools our country has to offer and
they're asking people to work for free.
This is unconscionable honestly Anna.
>> Of course it is, it really is look, so
if you're teaching like a three unit class and you do get paid.
If you're lucky to get paid, you might get four grand for it for
the entire semester for that class.
And by the way, teachings, not easy, teaching college students is not easy,
especially if you actually give a crap and
wanna make sure that they're getting a quality experience from it right?
If you wanna be more personal,
if you wanna focus like give them one on one attention, it's a lot of work.
Putting lectures together anyway it's so undervalued and
by the way there's like there's a reason why it's so
difficult to even find a tenured position.
Because if you're a tenured professor there are all sorts of pay
guarantees in a lot of cases there are union protections as well.
We'll get to all of that in just a moment but first I wanna get to the lie where
they're like it was a mistake, it was totally a mistake.
A spokesperson for the school claimed that the posting was a total accident.
However, Miguel Garcia Garibay who was UCLA's dean
of physical sciences was responsible for the job posting.
And he wrote quote, we recognize the language in this particular advertisement
could have been benefited or could have benefited from additional context.
Arrangements such as these are common in academia but
Garcia Garibay didn't provide any additional context at all.
Nor did he explain about the no pay arrangement and
how it's common in academia.
So he's the one who posted it, he doesn't say that it was a mistake.
He's like no this is actually commons,
we probably should have added more context to that job listing.
We failed to do that but this is a common thing to which I say,
>> This is a common thing we ask people to
work for free, that's common.
>> Yeah a school that charges a lot of money in tuition like
where does the money go?
Why do these universities have these massive trusts?
Honestly it's a genital measuring contest in a lot of ways right?
Look at how much funding, how much money we have in our trust,
it's a huge part of it.
But what's the point if it's not going to fairly compensate
the people who make that school as prestigious as it is?
It's it's terrible and I don't think anyone should be applying for
these types of jobs.
Like there needs to be like, people need to take a stand that UC's recruitment
guide for adjunct professors makes clear that non salaried offers are suitable
only under very limited conditions, where a faculty member in one
department takes on a joint appointment at another, for example.
How about no, how about even in that context, we compensate people,
they should be compensated.
Work is work stop asking people to work for free.
And finally, I wanna talk about the labor element to this,
like the the union elements.
So traditionally, adjuncts for people with outside professional experience or
duties and the willingness to share them with students on a part time basis.
But the term has begun to apply to faculty members kept outside the tenure track,
leaving them with low pay and little job security.
The adjunct model has been described as slave labor and
it's also a way to skirt certain requirements, right?
So you see AFT president Mia Mclver says this,
what raised a red flag for me in addition to the lack of compensation,
was that this job posting clearly called only for someone who was going to teach.
They may be using these appointments as assistant adjuncts to attempt to
avoid their obligations made under our union contract.
My fear is that you see management's addiction to cheap teaching labor is so
strong that our new contract is not going to be honored.
>> [INAUDIBLE] >> It's so cold blooded,
it's so disgusting.
>> Yeah and this seems to just be ideological as in I don't believe these
people should be paid.
Not that I can't afford it, not that they're not actually working,
it's just I deeply believe in my soul that these jobs should go unpaid.
And a lot of it is, a lot of these dudes paying crap that older people
always trying to push on the youth is like well I carried 20 coffees,
you should carry at least 23.
No and part of it is that, I bet that's what the justification always is,
this is what I did when I climbed up the ranks [SOUND].
So people did things that were unjust to me and so
therefore the next crap of people should endure unjust practices as well.
>> Yeah, yeah I don't buy that anyone who has that kind of attitude you see that
it's a pretty dominant attitude among those who don't wanna cancel student
loan debt.
It's like, well, I paid my student loan debt, I suffered so
I want everyone else to suffer.
Okay, I guess you're a good person anyway, >> [LAUGH]
>> All right.