New Collective Bargaining Chapters Formed
A number of local AAUP chapters serve as collective bargaining agents for faculty on their campuses, and in 2003 two more chapters became collective bargaining agents.
In March 2003, the faculty of the University of Akron elected the Akron AAUP chapter as its exclusive representative for collective bargaining. The successful election marked the conclusion of a fourteen-month campaign. In January 2002, the chapter began collecting authorization cards from Akron faculty. Nine months later, cards signed by 56 percent of the bargaining unit were filed with the State Employment Relations Board.
During the campaign, faculty support for collective bargaining grew. From a bargaining unit of more than 670 members, 388 voted for Akron-AAUP as the collective bargaining representative, and 220 voted for no representative. This 64 percent support for collective bargaining is in marked contrast to a 1995 faculty election at Akron, when only 29 percent of faculty members voted for collective bargaining. According to Steve Aby, past president of the Akron AAUP chapter, “The last eight years have been marked by a growing concern that faculty have been denied an appropriate role in shaping the academic, curricular, and professional policies that affect them. This vote represents the faculty’s determination to have a voice in these matters.”
In December, part-time faculty at the University of Vermont voted 41 to 6 to form a union that will be jointly affiliated with United Professions of Vermont/American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the AAUP. The full-time faculty at the university are also represented by a local chapter jointly affiliated with the AFT and the AAUP.
The part-time faculty will work to institute and protect Association-supported standards on their campus, as well as to achieve pay equity, access to benefits such as health care, and compensation for time spent with students outside the classroom.
“There are lots of different and complementary approaches to tackling the many abuses of adjunct faculty members and the detrimental effect this has on their full-time colleagues and the profession as a whole. But unionization is one sure path to acquiring the power needed to turn things around,” says Michael Mauer, the AAUP’s director of organizing and services.
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