“‘Persuasion, Precarity and the Professoriate’: Communication Challenges on Contract Faculty Campaigns”

As awareness of the situation of adjunct and contract faculty on campuses in Canada and the USA has grown over the last 20-plus years, so have struggles for better pay and working conditions. While the growing literature about the predicament of the precarious professoriate rightly condemns their exploitation and calls for solidarity on the part of regular faculty, there are far fewer accounts dedicated to discussing the campaign strategies and tactics employed to improve their situation on campus. Yet, contract faculty face obstacles that can make engaging in workplace organizing and campaigns difficult. This article shares an analysis of the communication tactics employed on contract-faculty campaigns at one university to draw out some effective campaign communications that can overcome obstacles and some that did not. Ultimately, activist scholars need to provide accounts of those campaigns that they have been actively involved in to share their lessons with others so that in future activists on each campus need not re-invent the wheel each time they organize to improve their working conditions and students’ learning conditions