Union Victories in Boston and Vermont

The Emerson victory marks the first successful union drive at a private college in Boston since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University, which severely curtailed organizing among full-time faculty at private institutions of higher education. The Emerson faculty report having been motivated by low salaries, a lack of benefits, and a feeling of exclusion from the life of their institution. Barbara Gottfried, an adjunct and consultant to the AAUP who served as the lead organizer of the campaign, says the victory "underscores the very real need for adjuncts to band together to improve our working conditions. We see it as the first step in a campaign to organize all private-sector adjuncts in Boston."

The full-time faculty, who are also represented by a local AAUP unit, joined ranks with Emerson students to support the part-time professors. More than seven hundred students signed a petition endorsing the union effort. Off campus, the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor organized faculty from other Boston institutions, who distributed flyers in support of their Emerson colleagues. The Campaign on Contingent Work and Jobs with Justice also pitched in by offering office space and technical assistance.

"The combined support of Emerson’s full-time faculty and students and the city’s adjunct activists provided a model for how faculty at Boston’s colleges and universities can work together," says Richard Moser, a staff member in the AAUP’s Department of Organizing and Services. He explains that the Emerson campaign’s reliance on the community was part of a strategy the AAUP has developed over the past two years to deal with the fact that the adjunct labor market is often dispersed throughout a region rather than institution specific.

With the victory at the University of Vermont, professors at all of the public research universities in New England are organized. Mark Stoler, a history professor at UVM and the lead faculty organizer, says he is elated by the large number of faculty members who voted—93 percent. "This is a tremendous victory," he comments. "Now we can negotiate as equals with the administration. We plan to work to maintain faculty prerogatives and to prevent further erosion of professional values."

According to Steve Finner, the AAUP staff member who worked most closely on the Vermont campaign, faculty sought unionization in response to improper allocation of resources, poorly managed retirement-incentive programs, and a lack of stability within the university’s upper administration. The new union hopes to start bargaining with the administration next fall.

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