Adjuncts are pushing for higher wages, access to health benefits and greater job security. On average they make less than $30,000 a year.

The vote at SLU was especially gratifying for Jameson Ramirez. Currently, he makes $3,200 per course teaching in the university’s department of sociology and anthropology.

Married and with two young children, Ramirez, 31, also teaches courses at Ranken Technical College and Greenville College in Illinois to make ends meet.

Ramirez, like other adjuncts has an advanced degree and dreams of getting a job somewhere as a full-time college professor.

The problem for many in his situation is that colleges have little incentive to offer full-time work

When they can find qualified adjuncts to teach at sharply reduced costs. Industry watchers say adjuncts now make up as much as 76 percent of the faculty teaching in U.S. colleges and universities.

For adjuncts, it means not knowing whether they will have a job beyond the current semester, and paying for health and other benefits on the private market.