ORGANIZING AS LEARNING: THE METRO STRATEGY AND A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE FOR FACULTY

Organizing of adjunct faculty is intensifying, and now is a good time to talk about strategies. This article argues that while the "hot shop" strategy, with its emphasis on getting authorization cards signed and moving swiftly toward an election, is racking up wins, it risks failing to develop the respectful interpersonal relationships that can carry a union through the hard times of bargaining and enforcing a contract. Two other strategies can make a difference. They depend on providing an answer to the question "Who is we?", which is a counter to the fragmentation of the faculty workforce created by budgets, labor law, administrative fiat, and management tools intended to undermine solidarity. One is the Metro Strategy, which treats a whole regional faculty workforce as a single "we," recognizing the realities of commute times, parking problems, and conflicting schedules. It recommends setting up a centrally located workers' center that provides both material resources like WiFi, meeting rooms, and toilets, and organizing resources like information. It acknowledges a regional, not institution-bound, workforce. The second strategy addresses the disciplinary achievements of adjunct faculty, who are often invisible within our own institutions. This strategy is drawn from theories of communities of practice generated by the anthropologist, Jean Lave, who investigated how communities as diverse as tailors and midwives passed on the wisdom and skills of their practices from one generation to another. Organizing using this approach as a guide means focusing on what the adjuncts who share a discipline or practice actually do in their professional, academic lives. This allows space for a "we" based on our real work, not on what an institution defines us to be.