Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 75
The ranks of this "contingent workforce"-defined
as temporary and part-time workers and independent
contractors-have been growing for decades. From 2006
to 2010, their numbers swelled from 35.3 percent of the
employed to 40.4 percent, according to data from the U.S.
Government Accountability Office. This trend isn't altogether bad. Plenty of part-timers, freelancers, and contractors prefer the freedom that comes from itinerant
and independent work. And such work is often the result
of innovations that lower barriers to entry in otherwise
closed markets-the way Uber's app, for instance, allows
amateurs with cars to compete with licensed taxi drivers and owners. The problem is that such arrangements
can lead to exploitation: in their winning lawsuit, for example, the California FedEx drivers complained that the
company shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in costs
onto them, from buying and maintaining their FedExbranded trucks to following FedEx schedules that didn't
allow for meal breaks and overtime. Not surprisingly, contingent workers in general report lower job satisfaction,
lower pay per hour, and fewer fringe benefits than workers in the same industries with more traditional employment, according to the GAO.
Less-skilled workers-truck drivers, hotel maids,
office temps-typically bear the brunt of these contingent arrangements, but the practice is also moving into
the professional classes. Thanks to a glut of law school
grads and a slumping legal business, the number of attorneys working part-time has grown from 2.4 percent
in 1994 to 6.1 percent in 2013. Other educated professions, from architecture to mainstream journalism, have
seen similar shifts.
Nowhere has the up-classing of contingency work
gone farther, ironically, than in one of the most educated
and (back in the day) secure sectors of the workforce: college teachers. In 1969, almost 80 percent of college faculty members were tenure or tenure track. Today, the numbers have essentially flipped, with two-thirds of faculty
now non-tenure and half of those working only part-time,
often with several different teaching jobs.
Why this should be so is not immediately obvious.
Unlike the legal and the traditional news industries, higher education has been booming in recent years. Nor does
higher ed seem to follow the pattern of other industries
being transformed by contingent employment. In his
book The Fissured Workplace, David Weil of the Boston
University School of Management (and currently the administrator of the U.S. Wage and Hour Division in the U.S.
Department of Labor) writes that the growth of contingent employment is being driven mostly by firms focusing on their core businesses and outsourcing the rest of
the work to contractors. But teaching students is-or at
least is supposed to be-the core mission of higher education. That colleges and universities have turned more and
more of their frontline employees into part-time contrac-
tors suggests how far they have drifted from what they
say they are all about (teaching students) to what they
are increasingly all about (conducting research, running
sports franchises, or, among for-profits, delivering shareholder value).
To be sure, the old tenure system has its problems,
and the rise of the contingent professoriate has its advantages-chief among them allowing fresh teaching talent
into the higher education system, often people with more
real-world experience than the regular faculty. The problem is that universities are using their power in ways that
shortchange both contingent teachers and, ultimately,
students. With courts and politicians increasingly questioning the fairness and legality of contingent work in industries like transportation, institutions of higher learning could soon be facing scrutiny, too.
S
ome trace the practice of hiring part-time instructors to a time when most schools didn't allow women as full professors, and thus adjunct positions
were associated with female instructors from the start.
Eileen Schell, author of Gypsy Academics and MotherTeachers: Gender, Contingent Labor, and Writing Instruction, notes that these contingent faculty members were
referred to as "the housewives of higher education." My
parents lived out that exact paradigm. Both professors,
my father was full-time and tenured and my mother was
originally tenure track until a move accompanying my fa-
With courts and politicians
increasingly questioning
the fairness and legality
of contingent work in
industries like transportation,
institutions of higher
learning could soon be
facing scrutiny, too.
ther got her only a non-tenured position as an "instructor" as part of a "package" created to lure my father to
Stanford. There my mother worked with a cohort of parttime faculty wives who were given little respect and even
less in wages. Women still make up the majority of contingent teachers, with estimates as high as 61 percent (by
contrast, 59 percent of full-time tenured faculty are men).
A neighbor of mine, Mitch Tropin, teaches at six different colleges in the D.C. area. Through a combination of
perseverance and good karma, he has been able to align
Washington Monthly
75
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2015
Contents
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - Cover1
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - Cover2
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 1
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 2
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 3
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 4
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 5
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 6
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 7
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 8
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - Contents
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 10
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 11
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 12
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 13
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 14
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 15
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 16
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 17
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 18
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 19
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 20
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 21
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 22
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 23
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 24
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 25
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 26
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 27
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 28
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 29
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 30
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 31
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 32
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 33
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 34
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 35
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 36
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 37
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 38
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 39
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 40
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 41
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 42
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 43
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 44
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 45
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 46
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 47
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 48
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 49
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 50
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 51
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 52
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 53
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 54
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 55
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 56
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 57
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 58
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 59
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 60
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 61
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 62
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 63
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 64
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 65
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 66
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 67
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 68
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 69
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 70
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 71
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 72
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 73
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 74
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 75
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 76
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 77
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 78
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 79
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 80
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 81
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 82
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 83
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 84
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 85
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 86
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 87
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 88
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 89
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 90
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 91
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 92
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 93
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 94
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 95
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 96
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 97
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 98
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 99
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 100
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 101
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 102
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 103
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 104
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 105
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 106
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 107
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 108
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 109
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 110
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 111
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 112
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 113
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 114
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 115
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 116
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 117
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 118
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 119
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 120
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 121
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 122
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 123
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 124
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - Cover3
Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20230910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20220910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20210910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20200910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20190910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20180910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20160910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20150910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20140910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20120910
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com