As we know, most members of OPE-L are academics who work in colleges. For those who work at private universities and who constitute a part of the productive labor force, have you experienced an increase in exploitation recently and has this then affected the quantity of "free time" that you have which has in turn led to diminished time for participating in OPE-L? Most of the labor of college instructors takes place outside of the classroom, right? Assume your "contact time" (i.e. in-class time) has remained constant. Hasn't there been an increase in your "non-contact" time? E.g. are you spending more time in your office? (and are expanded office hours required by management or do you voluntarily agree to expand your working hours?) Are you spending more time correcting exams? (was this also voluntarily undertaken?) Are you on more committees now and has that expanded your weekly hours of work? Is that mandated or voluntary? How many days a week are you on campus? (has that expanded)? Are all of the above activities productive of surplus value? Or are some unproductive activities? To the extent that there has been an increase in working hours per day and per week, can't we conceive of this as an increase in absolute surplus value? What are you doing (e.g. through your trade union) to combat this increased exploitation? Are you joining forces and solidarizing with other workers who aren't faculty in the university? Is part of your increased exploitation a result of increased class size? Have you agreed to any "over-tallies" or have you resisted an increase in your exploitation? Have you joined forces with students demanding smaller classes (and consequentluy more faculty)? We are agreed that faculty at private universities are exploited, aren't we? What about faculty at public universities? In solidarity, Jerry
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