In the fall of 2018, graduate students, and non-tenure track faculty began organizing a union at Marquette University with the SEIU Faculty Forward campaign. Low salaries — sometimes less than half what adjuncts at other peer institutions make — and rising health care costs ignited a broad movement that included months of protests, petitions, sit-ins, and teach-ins, which have led to an important moment for hundreds of academic workers.

So far, the university has refused to agree to a fair election process that would guarantee the democratic vote of the rank and file is respected. The situation at Marquette is yet another example of how academic workers increasingly resemble their service industry counterparts.

A recent email from Marquette University’s administration noted that the school likes having contingent faculty on staff because it helps the school “control costs” and “maintain flexibility.” But it pays its administrators 80 percent more than the average four-year university.