The idea of an “inside/outside strategy” in social movement and labor organizing is not new, and it can take various forms, depending on the circumstances (Moser Reference Moser2015). For example, the role played by the old ethnic labor councils, such as the Italian–American Labor Council formed in 1941, was to bring together groups that did not readily find a voice within the union structures that existed at the time. These formations were able to operate outside of these structures and speak to an unmet need of a particular community, thereby providing greater flexibility in terms of ideas and action, and sometimes positively influencing the more permanent labor organizations from which they emerged. Participants and leaders of the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL) have aspired to play such a role within higher education (Berry Reference Berry2005; Berry and Worthen Reference Berry and Worthen2014).^{Footnote 1}

COCAL is a loosely-knit group of part-time, temporary, graduate, adjunct, and non-tenure-track faculty and their supporters. It was conceived at the December 1996 “National Congress” organized by graduate students from George Washington University as well as activists from the Modern Language Association’s Graduate Student Caucus, which was having its annual conference in Washington, DC at the same time. This was followed by the New York National Congress in April 1998, and that is where COCAL was born. With help from various student government organizations—most notably the Doctoral Student Council of the City University of New York Graduate Center—and the energy of graduate students from around New York City, we emerged as a determined association of scholar–activists facing an uncertain future. Twelve conferences later, COCAL continues to develop the communication networks that help to build solidarity around issues facing faculty, students, administrators, and, we soon discovered, our entire global academic community. In the summer of 2020, COCAL XIV is scheduled to take place in Querétaro, Mexico.^{Footnote 2} In addition to the contingent academic labor participants from Mexico, Canada, and the United States, efforts are being made to invite academic labor activists from South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

In part, COCAL was a result of the lack of attention given by the major labor unions to the growing use of part-time faculty. The growth of higher education in the post-war United States, combined with funding instabilities during the 1970s fiscal crisis era and beyond, left the university system in crisis. Many labor unions responded to pressure from management by allowing an increasingly large, flexible, and multi-tiered work force to develop, ostensibly as a temporary measure to protect their full-time core group. However, the use of part-time and other classifications of non-tenure-track faculty became a permanent feature of the landscape. The strategic difficulty in organizing a fragmented work force composed of “temporary” part-time workers who are somewhat isolated from one another necessitated a different approach. From the earliest discussions at COCAL there emerged an understanding that a better means of communication and networking among contingent faculty might help to shift the discussion as well as the focus of labor unions. The growth in the use of the World Wide Web at that time facilitated these efforts, and the communications were supplemented by an email list, now known as [email protected], which currently has more than 650 subscribers from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, including numerous journalists from several major higher education periodicals.

Over time, COCAL has developed into an expanding network of activists. One coordinated activity, Campus Equity Week (CEW), was initiated at the January 2001 COCAL conference in San Jose. It was modeled after the week of activities known as Action 2000 (A2K), which was a campaign to raise awareness of contingent faculty issues in California. CEW has evolved into an annual week of activism which has garnered media attention and has helped contingent faculty activists and their supporters to be part of a continuing dialogue. The major academic labor federations in the United States—American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, and American Association of University Professors—and many of their local chapters have coordinated and provided resources for these events.

In terms of practice, COCAL has survived through a combination of organization and anarchy. It is not a membership organization and it does not collect any dues. There is a loosely structured steering committee that comes into play when it is needed, mostly to assist the local organizations with running the COCAL conferences and to decide where the next one will be held. Money raised for the conferences comes from conference fees and union donations. However, all decisions regarding the agenda and other conference matters remain with the local organizing committee supported by the steering committee. The conferences put a spotlight on local issues every time and allow for ongoing network building through face-to-face discussions. Participation in COCAL has allowed activists to raise questions that are not always heard inside the larger labor federations or in their local union chapters. The outside status of COCAL has allowed for a space where contingent academic labor activists could meet others in the same boat and share their grievances and strategies with a receptive audience. This has helped to build camaraderie and solidarity among the participants. In a small way, COCAL has played a role in raising consciousness about contingent faculty issues, and it has raised the level of dialogue as to how these inequities shape the function and role of the modern system of higher education.