by Vicki Urquhart

History professors Benjamin Johnson and Kevin Mattson, and union representative Patrick Kavanagh, provide an insider’s look at the academic labor movement in Steal This University. Labor activists all, they speak with one voice to warn of the imminent demise of the professoriate and the simultaneous rise of the corporate university. “The use of part-time hires, including graduate student teachers and postdocs, has grown and grown for the last several decades,” writes Johnson. “A majority of those who now teach in the nation’s colleges and universities are paid poorly, have little or no job security, few or no retirement or health benefits, only the weakest of free-speech protections, and no long-term relationship or commitment to a university community” (p. 61).

If you’ve ever wondered how higher education has changed since you were a student, you’ll be interested in the essays anthologized here, but stakeholders in the academic labor movement, adjunct faculty, labor activists, and university leadership, are the primary audience. Personal accounts from current and former adjuncts, graduate students, and professors reveal more than moderate discontent with low wages and lack of benefits; they speak of the dehumanizing affects of a system that exploits academic labor and shortchanges students. Their stories are serious business, and there is no doubt that Johnson, Mattson, and Kavanagh have a pro-union bias. Nonetheless, each essay is presented with respect for the reader’s position, whatever that might be, and the contributor’s personal experience.

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