To the Editor:
The recent essay, “Hard Truths of the Academic Labor Crisis” (The Chronicle Review, November 17), underscores an important disparity between tenure-track and other faculty and teaching assistants. However, it ignores an even larger number of university employees who are frequently overlooked. The article references the University of California 2021 employment, which included 166,676 senior professionals, student employees, and nonstudent staff. Whether participating as a laboratory research staff member, facilities-management worker, or accounting assistant, nearly all view themselves as part of the “academic community.” Nevertheless, they are often perceived as less important than teachers, employed as contingent workers or part-time, and are exposed to numerous workplace biological, chemical, physical, and social hazards without full protection. Student employees may even be overlooked for OSHA mandated programs. Thus, concern about labor conditions should consider the entire academic institutional community.
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