Bowling Green Faculty Vote for AAUP Union

By Jenn Nichols

A two-year organizing drive by the AAUP-affiliated Bowling Green State University Faculty Association ended in victory this October as faculty members voted by a wide margin in favor of unionization. The new faculty union will include tenured and tenure-track as well as full-time non-tenure-track faculty members at BGSU’s two northwest Ohio campuses. (Part-time faculty in Ohio are excluded by statute from collective bargaining.) Faculty concerns that drove the campaign included salaries that have consistently ranked eleventh among the state’s twelve public four-year institutions, the university’s declining numbers of tenured faculty members, programmatic changes made without adequate faculty input, and the lack of job security for the growing numbers of non-tenure-track teachers.

BGSU now joins seven other four-year public institutions in Ohio whose faculty unions are affiliated with the AAUP.