M S U A D J U N C T C O N N E C T I O N A F T L O C A L 6 0 2 5
4
A F T L O C A L 6 0 2 5 O F F I C E R S
President: Dr. Bob NoonanFirst Vice President: Mary Monahan
WallaceSecond Vice President: Q. Yolanda Simmons Secretary: Dr.
Hector RodriguezTreasurer: Vincenza Gioia KayDirector: James
KennedyDirector: Josh OsowskiDirector: Robert J. RussoDirector:
Greg Shtraks
ollegeouncil
MSU Adjunct Connection
is published by Montclair State University Federation of Adjunct
Faculty Local 6025 Council of New Jersey State College
LocalsAmerican Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO.Edited by Josh
Osowski
Our office is at Montclair State University, Dickson Hall, Room
441 Montclair, NJ 07043. Call us at 973-655-3298 or email us:
[email protected]
For more information please visit us at:
http://nj.AFT.org/060250
Legislative Report: Unemployment insurance
Through our affiliation with the AFT, our local gains the power
to influence legislative action on the state and even the national
level. That process is empowered when we on the local level get
involved in the process and contact our legislators on key issues.
One of the key issues in the New Jersey legislature that now
impacts adjuncts is a bill to give adjuncts fair access to
unemployment insurance. Because of the direct intervention of our
affiliates, the NJ-AFT and the NJ Council of State College Locals,
legis-lation has been introduced that will allow adjunct faculty to
collect unemployment insurance between semesters.
Many adjuncts who work summer sessions have discov-ered that
when you do not get a course load in a given summer your ability to
apply for unemployment is denied. This application is blocked even
though an adjunct may have taught summer courses in the past and
has no contract for employment in the fall. In addition, there are
instances in which adjuncts whom worked full-time elsewhere, lost
their full-time job and were denied unemployment com-pensation in
the summer because they’d worked and an adjunct. Yet all adjuncts
pay unemployment insurance. The question raised by adjuncts is,
“Why are we required to pay this insurance when we are very limited
in when we can access it? The problem is that the unemployment
agency treats adjuncts as if they were 10-month public school
teachers even though many adjuncts teach all year including summer
and now even winter sessions.
Our AFT affiliates acted to rectify this inequity by asking
Senators Sweeney and Linda Greenstein to introduce Senate Bill S
2495. The official statement on the bill states:
“This bill amends the unemployment insurance law to allow a
part-time or adjunct faculty member working in an instructional,
research or administrative capacity for an institution of higher
education, including a State or county college or university, to
receive unemployment benefits based on such services for any weeks
of unemployment occurring between two successive semesters, unless
there is a contract between the institution and the employee to
perform such services in the next academic year” If this language
becomes law, it will make access to unem-ployment insurance fair
for adjuncts. But for the legisla-tion to become law it needs
strong support from individual members. It is significant that one
of the two sponsors of the legislation is Senator Sweeney, who as
the President of the Senate has great control over the legislative
agenda. But there are many bills on that legislative agenda and for
this bill to move Senator Sweeney and Senator Greenstein need to
hear from adjuncts.
The key decision maker in getting this bill passed is Sena-tor
Sweeney. He can be contacted by mail at 935 Kings Highway, Suite
400, West Deptford, NJ 08086 or by phone at 856) 251-9801 (West
Deptford) or by email through the legislative contact service:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/SelectRep.asp. You can contact Senator
Greenstein and your local repre-sentative using the same link.
U N I O N P R O U D !
Adjunctsmake a
difference!
