On Labor, Compensation, and Ding Dongs

Less than a week ago, I was invited to speak on a panel as part of an event put on by a popular and respected publication entity. I was excited; the topic of the panel was relevant, compelling, and right up my professional alley. I also had never been invited to do anything for this particular entity before, so I felt flattered to be asked.

But I also knew that my schedule was tight, and they needed this work to be completed quickly. And Reader, I was tired; having just turned forty-nine, being neurodiverse, and having recently dealt with a host of autoimmune and hormonal challenges, I knew that squeezing this opportunity in would be both physically and mentally taxing. So despite my “good girl” instincts, I asked the person I was in contact with if this was a compensated opportunity.

She replied that, although their budget was “rather small,” they could offer me a nominal sum for my services. I got the vibe that this was an exceptional situation; that the other speakers had not been offered compensation for their work on behalf of the event. Naturally, I declined, stating that I could not, in good conscience, accept the payment they were offering if the other speakers–many of whom were women of color–were not also being compensated.

And this is where it got weird. I was corrected and told that although “the amount varies,” they did offer compensation to everyone for the event, although some panelist organizers may not have “brought it up” to their speakers yet, and a few “have already declined payment.” However, when I reached out to a few colleagues who I knew were also asked to speak during the event, this was News to Them™.

That got me angry. And thinking about all the work I do as an educator, author, and consultant, much of which is not compensated (or compensated fairly*). I also thought about my colleagues–so many of whom, like me, struggle to cobble together a living wage on an annual basis. I began to dig through my files.

Here is what I discovered:

In 2023, I noticed, I spent over $6,000 on travel, lodging, food, and conference registration fees alone. To be fair, some of this was spent on traveling for work for which I was paid up front–consulting, conducting in-person workshops for educators, et cetera. For work I do that is not paid, I average anywhere from $2000-$3000 per year for these same expenses–or at least, that was the case between 2017 and 2022.

I am of the opinion that this is Not Okay. But I’ll admit: thinking and talking about compensation, in general, is challenging. Fair compensation is not merely about the completion of a simple transaction (i.e., a sum of cash given to someone for the work they did). As many of us are all too aware, equitable pay is all tangled up in things like race, gender, class, education, documentation status, dis/ability, physical appearance, and on and on and on. You’ve seen, I’m sure, the reports about Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, and Kamilla Cardoso and their WNBA salaries, including this woefully under-nuanced hot take:

In the education profession–particularly when thinking about educators who are regularly invited to speak, write, serve on a panel, etc. (in addition to maintaining the demands of their various teaching positions)–compensation is not always about “cash in pocket.” In reality, many of us**, in theory, are “paid” for the work we do via “exposure,” which in turn morphs (again, in theory) into professional capital: our work is seen, our name becomes more familiar, and we are invited to engage in additional labor, feeding the perpetual cycle.

Additionally, educators are widely considered to be members of a “service” profession; one in which each of the following dialectical “truths” coexist alongside one another:

1) “Care” for the profession as a whole is considered an essential component of what it means to be a “good” educator, and

2) Gendered notions around “care” and “care work” are often weaponized to judge and exploit those (particularly those who identify as women, and especially for Black and Brown, and/or Indigenous women) who are unambiguously expected to engage in this work as part of their professional duty.

For example, in their piece “Care of the Profession: Teacher Professionalism and Learning Beyond Performance and Compliance” (2023), which explores the professional experiences of retired and late-career English teachers in Australia, authors Fleur Diamond and Scott Bulfin note that “teachers’ care…[can] be recruited to serve instrumentalist ends, as performative understandings of professionalism are proffered as the means by which the teacher constitutes themselves as a ‘good’ and ‘worthy’ member of the profession” (p. 7). In essence, they suggest that, rather than being valued for its intrinsic worth in fostering positive educational experiences for all (students and educators alike), there's a risk of genuine care from teachers being exploited or manipulated to meet certain external standards or expectations of professionalism.

This further complicates the issue of “fair” or “equitable” compensation for those of us in the field who are frequently “invited” to provide labor in addition to that we are contracted for. But let’s pivot for a second and examine some raw data from a Very Unscientific Survey I recently sent out that garnered over 100 responses in less than twelve hours (on a Saturday, no less!). In putting out this survey, I wanted to know if my experience of not being (what I consider to be) fairly compensated*** for much of the work I do “for the good of the profession” is shared among my colleagues.

One of the questions I asked was around the kind of labor my colleagues were “invited” to do over the course of the previous 6-12 months. Of 103 respondents,

58.3% were invited to present at a conference (or similar event);
24.3% were invited to speak on a panel;
22.3% were invited to write a blog post for an educational website;
21.4% were invited to be interviewed for an educational podcast;
20.4% were invited to review a manuscript proposal for an educational text, and
16.5% were invited to host a chat on social media.

I also wanted to know how frequently these individuals were offered compensation for this work. Of those who responded,

73% were “never” or “rarely/once or twice” offered compensation (broken down into 43% and 30%, respectively);
10% answered “N/A” (in other words, they were not invited to engage in any of the previous work at all over the last 6-12 months);
10% answered that they were offered compensation in “half”or “most” of the time; and
5% answered that they were offered a “waived” or “reduced” conference registration fee or were paid “in books.”

These results, although not scientifically “valid,” were also not surprising. Just for shits and giggles, I once tried to monetize all of the non-contracted work I did each year as part of my “service to the profession”–the hours spent planning and collaborating on 75-minute presentations, writing blog posts, preparing for interviews, making myself available for folks in the industry to “pick my brain,” etc. It went about as well as the time I tried to envision what a fair “salary” would look like the year I spent laboring as a stay-at-home parent–that is to say, it was impossible, and I ended up raging in my bed and decimating a box of Ding Dongs.

Regardless of the challenges of this line of inquiry, however, I think it’s worth it for us in this industry to begin thinking differently about compensation. This doesn’t mean that I (necessarily) propose we insist on cash payment for every bit of labor we do. Our work as educators is part a collective pursuit, and sometimes, it’s more important for us to engage in certain kinds of work for the greater community good, or for our own professional learning, or as part of a move toward a more inclusive, just, and equitable profession. However, at the same time, many of us–especially those with an excess of (un)earned social and cultural capital–ought to be demanding more, demanding better, for all of us.

At the very least, one thing I’d like to see more of us do is question the current status quo and talk more openly about this messy, tangled issue. At the risk of pissing some people off–and at eliminating any future such “invitations”–this is my modest attempt at doing so. What will yours be?

*Case in point: as an adjunct professor, I make approximately 8% of what I did in my last salaried position.

**Especially for those of us with white privilege–and especially especially for those with male-presenting privilege.

***And in many cases, paying out of pocket to do this work.

A Well-Balanced Diet (Reposted from the CCIRA Blog)