Organizing Precarious Labor in Film and Media Studies: A Manifesto

Contingent laborers cannot afford to perform the unpaid labor demanded of academics for work such as this.

In 2019, an informal group of academic laborers were involved in performing the free labor of developing the new Precarious Labor Organization (PLO) for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)—labor that also goes largely unrecognized in terms of promotion and retention for contingent faculty. That August, the editor of JCMS approached the group with the offer to produce a manifesto of sorts explaining the purpose and mission of the PLO. The offer was a welcome one. It represented an opportunity to announce the mission of the new organization and a chance to further the conversation about how to transform the field of film and media studies to acknowledge and include precarious faculty. But as the task of organizing the PLO and negotiating with the SCMS board of directors for its implementation took on more time, the semesters and quarters began, and the challenge of writing such a manifesto became clear.

Precarious faculty often teach up to five courses (or the equivalent) per semester, including multiple new class preps, as departments routinely rely on contingent labor to fill gaps. Queer and racialized contingent faculty take on the added work (emotional and otherwise) of mentoring marginalized students and confronting institutional racism and homophobia, all while "diversifying" white-dominated institutions. Underemployed academics continue to spend countless hours on cover letters, diversity statements, teaching statements, writing samples (all of different lengths!), portfolios of evidence of teaching effectiveness, teaching and diversity plans for various institutions, and sample syllabi for common core, lower division, upper division, and graduate courses. Despite the desire to produce a manifesto, it was soon clear: precarious faculty do not have the time to perform (more) uncompensated labor. See the email thread that follows.

On August 21, 2019, Caetlin Benson-Allott wrote

Dear Bruce, Becky, Beth, Sharon, Jamie, Joseph, and other members of the Precarious Labor Organization,

I'm writing as the editor of JCMS to offer the PLO space in the next issue going to press to publish an essay on the organization's identity, mission, and goals—sort of a "who we are, what we stand for, what we want" statement.

To appear in issue 59.4 (the next issue to go to press), the essay would need to be around 2,000 words, including notes. For that issue, I would need to receive the essay by November 1, 2019.

If you have other ideas about how JCMS can support the PLO, please let me know. . . .

Best wishes,

Caetlin

On August 21, 2019, Jamie Rogers wrote

Hi all,

I love this idea. It would be a great space to hash out the mission of the PLO, as Caetlin describes, and perhaps incorporate some of the Best Practices ideas that came out of the Women's Caucus last year (if any of you don't have a copy of that and want one, let me know and I'll get it to you). I am definitely down to commit to co-writing this with any or all of you!

Bruce and I talked a year (or more?) ago about pitching an In Focus on precarious labor. Life got in the way of getting it rolling, but perhaps it is something worth revisiting down the line as well.

All the best,

Jamie

On August 21, 2019, Beth Corzo-Duchardt wrote

I also love this—especially the open-access idea—and I'm here for whatever level of involvement you want me to take on. I won't be able to begin working on it until Sept. 8 or so, however. So please get started without me.

On August 21, 2019, Sharon Shahaf wrote

I love and appreciate this idea!

. . .

I think a major issue, either way, that I'd like the journal to consider is that taking on big collaborative work is extremely hard to do when one isn't collecting a TT [tenure...