Here's an interesting story: back in the day, when I was in grad school, we demonstrated because of our lousy pay and conditions.  We didn't get much press, though when Yale demonstrated a few months later, it got picked up nationally.  Anyway, the National Labor Relations Board has determined that grad students can't unionize b/c they're primarily students, not teachers.  Which is hilarious, except not, b/c it's so wrongheaded.  I made a whopping $2,000 a course most of the time at U.Va.--I think the pay was even lower at Queens--and somehow I was supposed to live off of three courses a year and write a dissertation with all my leftover energy.  Like everyone else I knew, I had a second job, so I was essentially working fulltime.  I think my best year, I managed to crawl gasping over the line into five figures. 
 
Invisible Adjunct has, alas, stopped writing her blog b/c she's no longer adjuncting--I'm hoping she's off somewhere making real money--but it's worthwhile to check out her site and Barely Tenured's site on working conditions in our universities--adjuncts and assistants do roughly 70% of the teaching in universities, IIRC.