What would the pros and cons be on forming a DL Instructors Union?

Just thinking out loud, it would be for 100% DL instructors only, and could be used to control wages and what not. If this is such a big market and the pay is so little compared to the tuition, this might be interesting.. or not. I have historically been against the general direction that unions take things, but on the other hand acknowledge they are very beneficial in some industries, the question is, is this one of those industries...

 

Having a union makes a huge difference. I teach online courses at Unionized schools and pay about 3 to 4 times more than online courses at online schools. The problem with unions is that they put a lot of emphasis on seniority, courses pay more at unionized schools but I don't get as many so I need to fill up with online courses from online schools.

You can make a Union for a particular school but I don't think a Union for all DL schools would work as a DL school can hire anyone they want. Even if All American DL instructors become part of the union, DL schools can always hire instructors from other countries as RA regulations do not impose any residence requirements for instructors so they can be anywhere in the planet. So you would need to convince every single people in the planet to become part of the union and this is not an easy task

I also doubt that schools like UoP would allow any unions, the minute you start organizing a union your contract would not be renewed.

The only way to regulate wages in a free market is be regulating the supply of instructors. In the past this was the case as getting a PhD was not easy task due to full time residence requirements. As internet increases the access to doctoral education, you would see more people with PhDs getting into the academic market and putting pressure to decrease wages.

If you look at economies where getting a doctorate was free and the unemployment is high like in the case of ex soviet union countries. You would see the consequence of having too many PhDs, in places like Moscow is not unusual to see PhDs doing jobs like driving cabs or being tour guides as University jobs just pay too little due to massive supply.

As people realizes that is not worth doing a PhD anymore, the online PhDs will become less attractive and salaries will become stable but we haven't reach that point yet so we will be seeing more abuse in the online teaching business.

 

Your probably right, it is an interesting idea though philosophically, as more and more jobs are offered by "working at home" in essence, where the geographic location of the labor force doesn't matter. Now the IT industry tried it, but found out that the face to face contact during development does in fact matter. As we all know it turns out that customer service phone call centers the location does not matter. In DL, it sure doesn't look like it matters, but as you point out this has negative consequences.

I however, as someone who did their DBA online, don't agree that because more people can have access to higher education, meaning a larger labor pool, that this is somehow a bad thing, even though the natural consequence of an additional labor supply is more job competition, leading to lower wages.

If anything, it would be nice if DL schools applied the same bias as B&M schools, and restructured their instructional DL staff to people that completed their degrees by 100% DL (tit for tat).

 

There is a negative economic effect of having too many PhDs but there is a social benefit that is more opportunities of development that before were not available.

DL schools do prefer to hire teachers that graduated from DL schools. At least this seems to be case as most people that I work with at online schools have degrees from pure DL schools.

The reality is that economy nowadays is just too dynamic and what is good today might not longer be required in the future. I started my career as a computer technician, who fixes computers nowadays? then I moved into software development that was good for a while before the market got saturated with too many professionals and also became obsolete due to the trends towards outsourcing.

I then moved into E-commerce and web development when it got to a point that was more profitable to teach it than doing it. I have been teaching full time for almost 6 years by getting most of my courses from two local schools and some at online schools but started to notice that too many people want to get into teaching as more people realize that is getting to a point that you make more money teaching IT than actually doing IT.

Bottom line, you need to keep your options open and follow the market trends.

 

My predictions?

I think schools are going to put the brakes on hiring those who teach at multiple online universities or colleges because of the excesses of those "I make $100K per year as an adjunct" articles. I'm afraid that when some students read some of those, they may get the impression that we (as in online instructors) view teaching their courses as mercenary work.

And if schools decide not to hire those who have extensive adjunct experience, they'll limit the chances that instructors can compare notes and get the best deals.

Think of how many instructors some of the more popular online schools have compared to how few discuss their job. The truth is there are only a few who are willing to give input to others about what makes for a good deal.

That's an easy one for schools to implement.

I also think the increasing number of online Ph.D. holders may be bad for those schools that generate them as well. No school wants to have most of their adjuncts come from a particular institution. If some schools keep pumping out hundreds of graduates per year, I can see some other institutions having an unwritten policy of 'No more than XX from XYZ University'. It wouldn't be that different than a school having a policy of not hiring their own graduates. They can defend it under the notion of academic diversity.

Finally, the economy is about to take a REAL bite out of online instruction as companies slash tuition reimbursement policies. Trust me, many people won't be taking courses at $500 (or more) per credit hour if their employer isn't picking up the tab.

So those are some interesting factors. I do think you're going to see a devaluation of Ph.D's but I'm not sure it'll be across the board. I really do think the biggest degradation may come for those schools producing the most resumes circulating about. Others from smaller programs may not notice it as much.

 

I'm somewhat surprised that conflict of interest or non-compete clauses are not part of the hiring documentation already.

 

That's because for most online teaching jobs - you are not an employee, you are an independent contractor.

Shawn

 

I have seen them only for full time online positions. If you teach full time for an online school, you are not allowed to teach for another school. I don't know how easy would be to enforce this as not all the schools publish their rosters online.

 

Yep, I have been on a similair path, I think this trend goes back to EE engineers starting in the 1960s and probably has been going on forever. With the strong barrier to entry that the instructional market has, even with online PhDs, it will take a lot longer to completly saturate, but all good things...

 

Independent contractor status would not preclude the school from requiring and enforcing a contractual agreement. I routinely include such provisions in contracts.

 

That could be challenged under the IRS code!

"Public agencies, particularly the Internal Revenue Service, look hard at independent contractor agreements when it appears the contractor is much like an employee. An independent contractor must be able to determine when and where work is performed, be able to work for others, provide own equipment and other factors which are indicative of true independence."

 

Kevin and Vini,

I understand both of you, but the schools and the adjunct employees in many cases like the independent contractor arrangement. (Less money for the school - no taxes withheld).

Just sayin...

Shawn

 

Including it in a contract and being able to legally enforce it if someone takes up the issue via the legal system are two different things. My guess is you wouldn't be able to officially prohibit it as you're discussing mostly P/T workers. Our courts believe we have a right to feed our families so you can ask F/T folks (with benefits) to do things the court might consider egregious to ask of P/T folks (w/o benefits). Most HR people will tell you that no-compete clauses are worthless if you're talking about part-timers.

On the other hand, it could be done silently as in we don't discriminate but it's our preference to hire a different type of candidate. That would be easy to do because most of the online schools state that they're looking for practitioner faculty, meaning you're working and doing this on the side. If you're working as hard at being an adjunct as anything else, the school may suggest that you're not their type of candidate.

I think that's more likely. Just a silent change of what HR wants to see. I doubt you'd see it published.

 

It would never stand up if seriously challenged. You're being told to do this and that at this time and by this date and you're under direct supervision. You don't have the flexibility a true independent contractor does.

It's one of those things that will eventually be repealed. And a lot of schools DON'T grant independent contractor status. UOP doesn't, for instance, and they're the biggest.

 

This work so well for both, They the "employer" gets to save a ton of money in taxes and other benefits and the "independent contractors" most of the time do not report this income for taxes purposes.

Just saying as well!

 

That's not quite the issue as you'd be nuts to NOT report independent contractor income. The IRS would see that as readily as they would you not reporting employee income. The company's reporting it. It's just a different form.

The real issue is independent contractor status allows someone to pretend that an activity is a business. So an independent contractor could try to itemize 'expenses' related to his or her employment in an effort to reduce their tax liability. So then you'd have people saying "Hey, I had to drive this far and I bought these clothes specifically for this deal and I printed these papers and bought these pencils and yadda yadda yadda..."

It's the wild wild West whenever people get to itemize. People want independent contractor status so they can itemize their income away to NOTHING. And some will. It's the old gambit of 'Open a business and pay no tax'.

Unless you do have itemizable expenses you really don't want that status because you're responsible for your SSI contribution in that relationship. And most don't plan for that. Of course, the company loves it as it's a reduced expense for them.

 

This depends, if you have a full time job and only make a small income on the side due to online teaching, I think you can get away with that 5-10K extra income free of taxes. If you work as a full time online adjunct (like Dr Babbs), I think you will have a hard time explaining to the government how you can live without income.

 

You can get away with a lot, but it will depend on many other factors, but I want to share a site that will open your eyes!
http://livefreenow.tv/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10&Itemid=42

http://livefreenow.tv/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=35

I guess this will not apply to you since you live in Canada. You have nothing to worry about.