After years of orga­niz­ing, we have won our union elec­tion, and hope­ful­ly I can get back to wor­ry­ing more about les­son plans than my finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty. On July 14, 86% of my col­leagues vot­ed to form a union with the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Teach­ers (AFT), effec­tive­ly union­iz­ing over 800 instruc­tors across CCAC’s four cam­pus­es. And while this is only the first step before we head to the bar­gain­ing table, it rep­re­sents a huge vic­to­ry for aca­d­e­m­ic labor and con­tin­gent faculty.

How­ev­er, as I adjust­ed to life as an adjunct instruc­tor with a semes­ter-to-semes­ter con­tract, my ques­tions quick­ly changed: What if my class­es don’t run and I can’t make rent? How do I get from class to my next job in time? How do I meet with stu­dents with­out real office space?

On my first day teach­ing at the Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege of Alleghe­ny Coun­ty in Pitts­burgh, I was wracked with the nor­mal anx­i­eties of a new col­lege instruc­tor: What if the stu­dents don’t like me? What if my les­son plan falls apart? Where exact­ly is the copy machine? What if my hair looks stupid?

The road to the elec­tion was long, start­ing through casu­al office dis­cus­sions in 2012. From then, we began to form a rela­tion­ship with the Unit­ed Steel­work­ers, who were then orga­niz­ing adjunct fac­ul­ty at Point Park Uni­ver­si­ty and Duquesne Uni­ver­si­ty. After some dis­cus­sion, we then chose to be rep­re­sent­ed by the AFT, which has rep­re­sent­ed the full time fac­ul­ty at CCAC since 1971. With the help of our full time col­leagues, we then put our nose to the grind­stone and tracked down hun­dreds of our cowork­ers scat­tered through­out West­ern Penn­syl­va­nia. Two years and count­less phone calls, house calls and hall­way con­ver­sa­tions lat­er, we have full recog­ni­tion as mem­bers of a union.

Although the adjuncts at CCAC have tried to orga­nize in the past, our dri­ve flour­ished because of a few key fac­tors. First, the chang­ing polit­i­cal cli­mate over the past few years has brought adjunct labor issues to the front of many people’s minds. Espe­cial­ly in Pitts­burgh, the death of Mar­garet Mary Vojtko at Duquesne Uni­ver­si­ty pro­vid­ed a trag­ic exam­ple of adjunct exploita­tion and kicked off a nation­al con­ver­sa­tion. As I spoke to my col­leagues, they were aware of the larg­er pic­ture and how the cor­po­ra­ti­za­tion of high­er edu­ca­tion has mar­gin­al­ized fac­ul­ty. Many instruc­tors were excit­ed to hear that we could band togeth­er to improve our work­ing con­di­tions and have a real voice in the life of the college.

Sec­ond, the nation­al move­ment to union­ize con­tin­gent fac­ul­ty was instru­men­tal in our orga­niz­ing effort. The work of adjuncts in the Wash­ing­ton, D.C. area, St. Louis, Boston, Philadel­phia and across the coun­try pro­vid­ed us with valu­able lessons as we talked to cowork­ers, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and stu­dents over the past three years. The momen­tum of adjunct orga­niz­ing inspired us as we watched our friends at Duquesne fight a hos­tile admin­is­tra­tion and as we fol­lowed George Wash­ing­ton University’s suc­cess­es at the bar­gain­ing table. Dur­ing the cam­paign, we were bol­stered by mes­sages from the Unit­ed Aca­d­e­mics of Philadel­phia, who are fight­ing a tough cam­paign against the admin­is­tra­tion at Tem­ple Uni­ver­si­ty. Through­out our union dri­ve, the nation­al move­ment showed us time and time again that union­iz­ing was pos­si­ble and essen­tial to reclaim­ing our val­ue as work­ers and educators.

Third, the sup­port we received from the larg­er com­mu­ni­ty was invalu­able as we moved to the elec­tion. No one can live or orga­nize in a vac­u­um. The full-time fac­ul­ty union pro­vid­ed essen­tial sup­port to us, and the mem­bers have helped us build a strong work­ing rela­tion­ship with the college’s admin­is­tra­tion. Amaz­ing­ly, CCAC’s admin­is­tra­tion has not thrown any road­blocks our way, choos­ing instead to respect the voic­es of fac­ul­ty at the col­lege. This spir­it of col­lab­o­ra­tion has been aid­ed at every step of the way by our team of AFT orga­niz­ers, oth­er union allies and even friends in the admin­is­tra­tion. This coali­tion of sup­port­ers will be essen­tial as we fight for our needs at the bar­gain­ing table and work as mem­bers of the CCAC community.

The bar­ri­ers to orga­niz­ing adjuncts are real and dif­fi­cult to over­come. We often don’t know our cowork­ers, we are decen­tral­ized and our lack of secu­ri­ty cre­ates a per­va­sive fear among adjuncts. How­ev­er, the only way that we will be able to fight for increased pay, greater job secu­ri­ty and a voice in the col­lege is by work­ing collectively.

We are tee­ter­ing at the edge of major changes in the struc­ture and future of high­er edu­ca­tion in the Unit­ed States. Fac­ul­ty — those of us who are most con­cerned with stu­dents’ well being — must have a voice in cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able, just edu­ca­tion sys­tem, both for us and future gen­er­a­tions of students.

Of course, this is only the begin­ning. So far, we’ve only won the legal right to bar­gain col­lec­tive­ly, and the real work of build­ing a con­tract is only start­ing. How­ev­er, the rela­tion­ships we have built through the process will give us pow­er to advo­cate for a stronger, sus­tain­able and more just edu­ca­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. And hope­ful­ly, we’ll be able to help push the move­ment for­ward as oth­er groups of adjuncts across the coun­try seize pow­er in their work­places and make their voic­es heard.