In an effort to establish better working conditions and increased job security, 78 percent of adjunct faculty at Mills voted in May to join SEIU Local 1021, the union that represents more than 50,000 public sector and nonprofit workers in Northern California. That means that non-tenured professors at the college now have basic union protections and representation. And last week, professors, union representatives, and administrators began the process of negotiating the college’s first-ever union contract for adjuncts. Mills was the first private, nonprofit college in the Bay Area to have its adjuncts unionize and a number of other local schools are now following suit.
While activists celebrate this milestone, Mills administrators have, according to a number of adjuncts and labor activists, responded with a series of retaliatory actions. SEIU 1021 has already filed four unfair labor practice charges against Mills, alleging that the college has implemented policy changes without giving the union proper notice or an opportunity to bargain — and has retaliated and discriminated against two faculty members for union organizing. Critics say the administration’s actions reflect an ongoing failure to support adjuncts and a level of resistance to unionization that contrad