We encourage institutions, unions, law firms, and individuals to donate to help support the National Center’s research and programming.

June 2023 Newsletter

This month's newsletter includes an announcement about the National Center office's move, additional details and registration information for the September 14-15, 2023 labor-management regional conference in Chicago, and the National Center's Call for Proposals for our 2024 annual conference in New York City.

The newsletter also includes links to video recordings of nine sessions from our 50th anniversary conference including the keynote address by political philosopher Michael Sandel. It also includes information about a survey being conducted by the Pullias Center for Higher Education on academic careers and environments.

It also reports on representation cases involving faculty, graduate assistants, librarians, interns and residents, and staff working in higher education along with representation efforts among museum workers in Chicago and San Francisco.

Lastly, the newsletter includes links to articles in the current volume of the Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy and an announcement about an upcoming labor history book on contingent faculty.

The National Center On the Move

Effective July 1, 2023, the National Center's offices will be located at Hunter College's main campus in the East Building, Rooms 1418 and 1444, at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City.

Our new mailing address is:

National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining In Higher Education

and the Professions

Hunter College, East Building, E1444

695 Park Ave

New York, New York 10065

Register Today

Higher Education Collective Bargaining Workshop Training

University of Illinois-Chicago, September 14-15, 2023

The National Center, the University of Illinois System, and the University of Illinois School of Labor & Employment Relations’ Labor Education Program are co-sponsoring a two-day higher education collective bargaining workshop training in Chicago on September 14-15, 2023.

The workshop is aimed at those who are negotiators, bargaining team members, as well as, administrators and union members who seek to learn more about collective bargaining in higher education.

Register now for the September workshop training, which will take place at the University of Illinois-Chicago Student Center East, located on Halsted Street, just south of the Jane Byrne Interchange.

The keynote speaker will be Sameer Gadkaree, President, The Institute of College Access and Success.

Panels and facilitated discussions will examine:

• Best Practices in Collective Bargaining

• Unit Composition, Ground Rules, Information Demands, Tactics and Strategies

• Just Cause, Tenure, Job Security, and Appointment Length

• Compensation and Workload

• Post-Pandemic Remote Work and Technology Issues 

• Community Colleges: Distinct Bargaining Issues and Challenges 

• Negotiating Sick Leave, Childcare Leave, Union Leave and General Wellness

• Academic Freedom and the First Amendment

• Collective Bargaining over Discrimination, Title IX, and DEI Issues

• 10 Best Practice Tips from Experienced Labor Arbitrators

• Legal Obligations under Public Sector Statutes and NLRA

The following is a list of currently confirmed speakers, presenters, and facilitators:

• Meeta Bass, Arbitrator

• Mark Bennett, Lander Muchin, Ltd.

• Robert Bloch, Dowd, Bloch, Bennett, Cervone, Auerbach & Yokich, LLP

• Robert Boonin, Dykema Gossett, PLLC

• Robert Bruno, University of Illinois Labor Education Program Director

• Melinda Bunnage, Director of Higher Education, SEIU Local 73

• Nicholas Christen, Director of Field and Organizing, Illinois Federation of Teacher

• Angie Cowan Hamada, NLRB Region 13 Director

• Robb Craddock, Executive Director of Labor and Employee Relations, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

• Theodore Curry, Professor of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Michigan State University (emeritus)

• Julie Dillard, Assistant Director of Labor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

• Micheal Falvo, Arbitrator

• Jeffrey Frumkiin, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Human Resources, University of Michigan (emeritus)

• Charlotte Garden, Law Professor, University of Minnesota

• Alice Johnson, General Counsel, Cook College Teachers Union

• Aaron Krall, President, UIC United Faculty



• Risa Lieberwitz, Professor of Labor and Employment Law, Cornell ILR and AAUP General Counsel

• Marcia J. Mackey, Michigan Education Association Board of Directors, and NCHE Secretary

• Alexandria Matish, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, University of Michigan

• Sidney McBride, Director, Bureau of Employment Relations. Michigan Employment Relations Commission

• Gretchen McNamara, Ohio AAUP Conference President and Chief Negotiator, AAUP-WSU

• Julie Micelli, Husch Blackwell

• Melissa Mlynski, Associate Vice Chancellor HR, University of Illinois-Springfield

• Mike Newman, Deputy Director, AFSCME Council 31

• Andre' L. Poplar, Vice Chancellor for Human Resources and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, Oakland Community College

• Thomas H. Riley, Jr. Executive Director of Labor and Special Counsel, University of Illinois System

• Keino Robinson, Director of Labor and Employee Relations, University of Illinois-Chicago

• Melissa Sortman, Director, Office of Faculty and Academic Affairs, Michigan State University

• Ellen Strizak, General Counsel, Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board

• Karen Stubaus, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Rutgers University

• Benjamin M. Superfine, Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Relations, University of Illinois-Chicago

• Joerg Tiede, AAUP Director of Research

• Rachel Tollett, UniServ Director, Service Area HE, IEA-NEA

• Tony Johnson, President Cook County Teachers Union Local 1600

• Elizabeth Towell, SEIU Local 73

• Diana Vallera, President CFAC/IFT, Columbia College

• Brandy Vanderhovel, UniServ Director Michigan Education Association

• Betty Widgeon, Arbitrator

• Charitianne Williams, UIC United Faculty

• Margaret E. Winters, Former Provost and Professor Emerita French and Linguistics, Wayne State University

Call for Proposals: National Center's 2024 Conference in New York City

The National Center invites proposals for panels for our 51st annual conference that will take place on March 17-19, 2024 in New York City.

The theme of the 51^st annual conference will be New Crossroads in Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations in Higher Education and the Professions.

We welcome proposals for balanced panels relevant to higher education, professional employment, unionization, collective bargaining, labor relations, and labor history. A list of suggested panel topics is below.

We also encourage conference proposals from authors of recently published books relevant to collective bargaining, unionization, and other issues in higher education and the professions.

Those interested in proposing a panel should upload an abstract by September 12, 2023 to 2024 Abstract Dropbox that includes a title and description along with a list of invited participants including their title, affiliation, and contact information.

Questions concerning the call for proposals should be emailed to 2024 National Center Annual Conference.

Below is a list of suggested panel topics:

• Collective Bargaining about Artificial Intelligence

• The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Academic Research and Pedagogy

• Remote Work and Back-to-Office Mandates Following the Pandemic

• Electronic Surveillance on Campus: Bargaining Issues and Transparency

• Labor-Management Committees for Evaluating New Technologies on Campus

• Labor and Institutional Responses to the Growing Attacks on Higher Education

• Strategies, Tactics, and Approaches to Enrollment and Completion Rates

• Community College Job Training Partnerships with Industry

• Trustee Perspectives on Collective Negotiations

• Privatization of Public Services in Higher Education

• Mergers, Acquisitions, and Closures of Colleges: Bargaining and Other Issues

• Affirmative Action and DEI Initiatives after the Supreme Court Decisions in the Harvard University and University of North Carolina Cases

• Collective Bargaining over Harassment and Title IX Issues

• The Illinois Workers’ Rights Constitutional Amendment and Recent Changes to State Collective Bargaining Laws: An Update and Analysis

• Survey of Higher Ed Pandemic-Related Agreements

• Workshop on Stress Reduction Strategies and Exercises

• Bargaining Unit Composition: Separate, Combined, or Wall-to-Wall?

• Collective Negotiations for Department Chairs and Administrative Personnel

• Bargaining Issues for Classified, Clerical, and Other Campus Staff

• Best Practices in Negotiating over Tuition Waivers and Affordable Housing

• Negotiating over Accommodations for Disabled Faculty, Staff, and Students

• Bargaining, Arbitrating, and Litigating over Academic Freedom

• The History of Contingent Faculty Unionization in Higher Education

• Graduate Student Representation Election Outcomes, 2020-2023

• Analyses of the Post-Pandemic Strike Wave in Higher Education:

• Causes, Size, Scope, and Locations

• Impact on Budgeting and Grant Funding

• Relationship between Duration and Outcome

• The Rise of Undergraduate Student Employee Unionization

• Growth and Implications of DIY Unions in Higher Education

• Student Scholarship Athletes: Update on Employee Status and Its Implications

• The History and Data Concerning Cultural and Museum Worker Unionization

• Unionization, Collective Bargaining, and Strikes Among Doctors and Nurses

Video Recordings from the 50th Anniversary Conference

The National Center's 50th anniversary conference on March 26-28, 2023 was a major success. We thank all the panelists, moderators, and attendees for their participation.

Click here for the full conference program. And click here for the webpage dedicated to the 50th Anniversary conference, which was developed with the assistance of Iris Finkel, Hunter College Web and Digital Initiatives Librarian.

Below are links to video recordings of certain presentations at the National Center's 50th Anniversary Conference.

We thank Roosevelt House Production Coordinator Daniel T. Culkin and Peter Jackson, Hunter College's Chief Digital Media CLT & Production Coordinator and the students of the Hunter College Film & Media Department for recording and producing the videos.

Welcoming Remarks by National Center Executive Director William A. Herbert, Anne Ollen, Managing Director, TIAA Institute, Gary Rhoades, University of Arizona and Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy, and Karen Stubaus, Rutgers University and Associate Editor, Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy.

Keynote Presentation by Michael Sandel, Political Philosopher and Harvard University Professor with Introductory remarks by Hunter College President, Jennifer J. Raab.

Panel: Title IX: Its Past, Its Present, and Its Future with Frazier Benya, Senior Program Officer, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Lance Houston, Title IX Coordinator and Director of Equity and Compliance, Adelphi University, Risa Lieberwitz, Professor of Labor and Employment Law in the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and General Counsel of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Tamiko Strickman, Special Advisor to the President and Executive Director of the Office of Equity, Civil Rights, and Title IX, University of Michigan, and Moderators: Karen R. Stubaus, Ph.D., Vice President for Academic Affairs, Rutgers University and Alexandra Matish, J.D., Associate Vice Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs and Senior Director, Academic Human Resources, University of Michigan. This panel was co-organized by the National Academies' Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education.

Panel: Treasuring the Past and the Spirit of Change: Perspectives from Experienced Arbitrators with Rosemary A. Townley, Arbitrator and Mediator, Howard C. Edelman, Arbitrator and Mediator, Jacquelin F. Drucker, Arbitrator and Mediator, and Homer LaRue, Arbitrator, Mediator, and Professor, Howard University Law School, Moderator. This panel was co-sponsored by the National Academy of Arbitrators.

Panel: Higher Education Unionization: Perspectives from Labor Relations Agencies with John Wirenius, Chairperson, New York State Public Employment Relations Board, Marjorie Wittner, Chairperson, Massachusetts Commonwealth Employment Relations Board, Mary Beth Hennessy-Shotter, Director of Conciliation and Arbitration, NJ Public Employment Relations Commission, and Michael P. Sellars, Executive Director, Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission, Moderator. This panel was co-sponsored by the the Association of Labor Relations Agencies.

Panel: Annual Legal Update with Amy L. Rosenberger, Willig, Williams & Davidson, Monica C. Barrett, Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC, Henry Morris, Jr., Partner, ArentFox Schiff LLP, Aaron Nisenson, Senior Legal Counsel, AAUP, and Brian Selchick

Cullen and Dykman LLP, Moderator.

Panel: Yesterday and Today: Experienced Faculty Leaders in Higher Education with Jamie Dangler, former Vice President for Academics, United University Professions, Art Hochner, Associate Professor Emeritus, Management, Temple University & former President, Temple Assn. of University Professionals, AFT 4531, Charles Toombs, President, California Faculty Association, Kenneth Mash, President, APSCUF, and Penny Lewis, Secretary, Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, AFT Local #2334, Moderator.

Panel: Exploring the Retirement Income Equity Gap with Brent Davis, Economist, TIAA Institute, John Dorsa, Chief Pension Officer, Office of the New York City Comptroller, Valerie Martin Conley, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Idaho State University, and Anne Ollen, Managing Director, TIAA Institute, Panelist and Moderator.

Panel: College Athletes, NCAA and the NLRA: An Update with Gabriel Feldman, Sher Garner Professor of Sports Law, Tulane Law School, Joshua Nadreau, Fisher Phillips LLP, Mark Gaston Pearce, Executive Director, Workers’ Rights Institute, Georgetown University Law School, and former National Labor Relations Board Chairman, and Jeffrey Hirsch, Geneva Yeargan Rand Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law, Panelist and Moderator.

Panel: Labor Issues Facing Independent Musicians with Marc Ribot, Guitarist and Composer, Phillip Golub, Pianist and Composer, Amir Elsaffar, Trumpeter and Composer, Sulynn Hago, Guitarist and Composer, and Larry Blumenfeld, Moderator. This panel was co-sponsored by the Music Workers Alliance.

Faculty Academic Careers, and Environments (FACE) Survey

Adrianna J. Kezar and her colleagues at the Pullias Center for Higher Education have announced the Faculty, Academic Careers, and Environments (FACE) project, and is requesting your participation.

The FACE survey is a collaboration between researchers at the University of Southern California, University of Alabama, and RTI International, with funding from a National Science Foundation grant. The survey is designed to learn about the careers and working environments of faculty academic/instructional staff, researchers, and public service staff including full-time, part-time, and contingent faculty/staff. This survey includes all public and private-non-profit post-secondary institutions in the United States, except for medical, dental, and nursing schools.

To participate, you can register at edsurveys.rti.org/faces. The survey takes approximately 30 minutes to complete. If you have questions about the FACE Project, you can contact the FACE Help Desk at face_survey@rti.org or 866-253-0474. Additional information is also available at Putting a FACE on Faculty - Pullias Center (usc.edu)

Michigan School of Psychology: Faculty Union Election Ordered

Michigan School of Psychology, NLRB Case No. 07-RC-315926

On April 7, 2023, the MSP Alliance of Teachers, AFT filed a petition to represent a bargaining unit of 25 faculty at the Michigan School of Psychology.

On June 8, 2023, NLRB Region 7 Director Elizabeth Kerwin issued a Decision and Direction of Election, rejecting Michigan School of Psychology's argument that core faculty and adjunct faculty should not be in the same bargaining unit due to a lack of a community of interest.

The Region Director found that the educational qualifications and training of both faculty groups are identical and they perform the same primary function of teaching master's and doctoral courses. While the two groups do not share all the same functions and have disparate terms and conditions, the Region Director found those differences to be outweighed by other factors including their fundamental similarities in training and responsibilities, their significant contact and interactions, and the fact that both groups of faculty lack tenure rights.

The Region Director found the following bargaining unit to be appropriate:

Included: All full time and regular part-time Core Faculty and Adjunct Faculty employed by the Employer at or out of its facility located at 25811 Orchard Lack Road, Farmingham Hills, Michigan.

Excluded: Adjunct Faculty Clinical Supervisor, Clinic Director, Director of Clinic Training, PsyD Program Director, MA Program Director, and all guards and supervisors a defined by the Act.

Miami University: Librarians Vote for AAUP-AFT Representation

Miami University, OSERB Case No. 2023-REP-03-0024

On June 14, 2023, the Ohio State Employment Relations Board tallied the ballots in an election concerning a petition by Faculty Alliance of Miami (FAM), AAUP-AFT to represent a unit of 31 librarians employed by Miami University. The tally demonstrated the librarians voted 28-0 in favor of FAM, AAUP-AFT representation. The election result follows last month's election in which full-time faculty voted 450-241 in favor of FAM, AAUP-AFT representation.

Western Washington University.: UAW Certified to Represent GA Unit

Western Washington University, WPERC Case No.136078-E-22

On June 21, 2023, the Washington Public Employment Commission issued a Decision and Interim Certification, following an election, to the UAW to represent the following bargaining unit of graduate assistants and other student employees at Western Washington University:

All employees enrolled in academic programs and employed by Western Washington University in the following classifications: (1) Graduate Teaching/Research Assistant; (2) Graduate Research Assistant; (3) Research Assistant; (4) Teaching Assistant; (5) Tutors, Reader and/or Grader in all academic units and tutoring centers; (6) Faculty Assistant; (7) Lab Assistant; and any other student employees whose duties and responsibilities are substantially equivalent to those employees in (1) – (7); excluding students who have no service expectancy imposed upon them by the employer, casual employees, confidential employees, supervisors, employees covered under chapter 41.76 RCW, employees included in any other bargaining unit, and all other employees.

The case was remanded, however, for resolution of a dispute between the parties about the eligibility of certain employees to be in the bargaining unit.

University of Pittsburgh: USW Files to Represent Staff Unit

University of Pittsburgh

On June 15, 2023, the United Steelworkers filed a petition with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to represent a 7,000 staff bargaining unit at the University of Pittsburgh.

The following is a description of the proposed unit in the representation petition:

Included: All unrepresented full-time and regular part-time, professional and non-professional, hourly and salaried Staff, employed by the University of Pittsburgh at all campuses in the Commonwealth.

Excluded: All other employees, including represented employees, research associates, postdoctoral associates, faculty, graduate assistants, guards, confidential employees, managerial employers, and supervisors as defined under PERA.

Loma Linda University Health: Residents and Fellows Vote to Unionize

Loma Linda Inland Empire Consortium for Healthcare Education d/b/a Loma Linda University Health Education Consortium, NLRB Case No. 31-RC-312064

On June 22, 2023, the NLRB tallied the ballots in a representation election involving a bargaining unit of 805 full-time and regular part-time residents and fellows working for Loma Linda University Health. The tally demonstrated that the residents and fellows voted 361-144 in favor representation by the Union of American Physicians & Dentists.

The following is the new bargaining unit at Loma Linda University Health:

Included: All full-time and regular part-time Residents and Fellows enrolled in one of LLUHEC’s residency or fellowship programs and assigned to one of the locations that participate in the program.

Excluded: All Chief Residents, Attending Physicians, Faculty, Residents and Fellows enrolled at a non-LLUHEC residency or fellowship program, clerical employees, confidential employees, guard, and supervisors as defined by the Act, as amended.

Bennington Coll: Undergraduate House Chairs Vote for Representation

Bennington College, NLRB Case No.: 03-RC-317292

On May 31, 2023, the NLRB tallied the ballots in an election concerning a representation petition filed by the Bennington College House Chairs Union, an independent undergraduate student labor union, Tally demonstrated that in a unit of 36, undergraduate house chairs voted 19-1 in favor of representation.

The following is a description of the new undergraduate bargaining unit at Bennington College:

Included: All undergraduate House Chairs employed by the Employer at its Bennington, Vermont campus who were employed by the Employer during the payroll period ending April 29, 2023.

Excluded: All other student and non-student employees, office clerical employees, confidential employees, managers, guards and professional employees and supervisors as defined in the Act.

Museum of Science and Industry: Employees Vote to Unionize

Museum of Science and Industry NLRB Case No.13-RC-317780

On June 17, 2023, the NLRB tallied the ballots in an election on a petition filed by AFSCME Council 31 to represent a bargaining unit of 115 employees at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The ballot tally showed the employees voted 79-26 in favor of AFSCME Council 31 representation.

California Academy of Sciences: SEIU Files to Represent Workers

California Academy of Sciences, NLRB Case No. 20-RC-318803

On May 24, 2023, SEIU Local 1021 filed a petition seeking to represent a unit of 368 employees working for the California Academy of Sciences, a science museum located in Golden Gate Park. On June 20, 2023 a Notice of Election was issued scheduling a mail ballot election with ballots to be returned to the NLRB Region 20 office on or before July 18, 2023 at 2:00 p.m.

The National Center's Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy has published. Volume 14. The volume title is "Learning from the Past to Enhance our Future."

The Journal's Editors-in-Chief are Gary Rhoades, University of Arizona, Karen Stubaus, Rutgers University, and Jeffrey Cross, Eastern Illinois University (Emeritus).

Introduction:

Volume 14 of the Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy (JCBA) is partly a selection of new articles, practitioner perspectives, and op-eds, which we briefly preview below. It is also partly a special issue celebration of the 50^th anniversary of Hunter College’s National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions (National Center), featuring a selection of thirteen papers from the annual conference proceedings over the years. Our volume’s title, “Learning From the Past to Enhance Our Future,” echoes this year’s annual conference theme, “Looking Back, Looking Forward.”

In this issue, we happily welcome a new co-editor of JCBA, Dr. Karen Stubaus, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Rutgers University, to join Dr. Jeff Cross (now “retired,” but formerly Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Eastern Illinois University and Ferris State University) and Dr. Gary Rhoades Professor of Higher Education, University of Arizona. The 50 years of the National Center’s existence corresponds roughly to the academic lives of the co-editors, as students and employees. Indeed, Karen and Gary have each spent almost their entire professional lives at their respective institutions, having started in 1986. Jeff began his service and work in higher education a decade earlier. Collectively, that affords us a unique vantage point from which to look back on and learn from the selected papers from 50 years of the annual conference’s proceedings.

Building on the closing paragraphs of National Center Director Bill Herbert’s article in this volume, we believe that collective bargaining is “a form of workplace democracy,” and that it is “an important means for advancing higher education and the working conditions at colleges and universities as well as other industries.” (National Center Mission Statement)

As Herbert notes, that marks quite a shift from the National Center’s original, neutral mission to “take no position for or against collective bargaining,” What is continuous, though, is a commitment to the National Center bringing to bear “information and understanding” regarding collective bargaining. Thus, we also believe, as the current National Center Mission Statement indicates, that, "[T]he study of collective bargaining is essential for a knowledge-based dialogue concerning labor-management and educational issues, and is critically important for reasoned societal debate that will lead to social progress."

That is at the heart of our work with JCBA. And that is what we hope this special issue contributes to and provides.

Volume 14 includes two articles, two new interview articles, an op-ed, and a practitioner perspective. Together, they reflect and address longstanding issues in collective bargaining as well as provoke thought and discussion on the ongoing, pressing issues of today and the foreseeable future. Richard Boris provides an op-ed from his perspective as immediate-past Executive Director of the National Center. He repeats and expands upon several critical observations and suggestions as possible guides for the National Center’s future. From his perspective as Senior Labor Advisor, American Association of University Professors, Mike Mauer traces the AAUP’s history of advocacy and protection of academic freedom through collective bargaining. Bill Herbert has written a history of the National Center tracing events leading to its creation at the City University of New York (CUNY), and then summarizing the National Center’s evolving leadership, programming, research, and publications. Giovanna Follo’s practitioner perspective is an autoethnography describing personal dilemma that led her, a pro-union advocate, to cross the picket line.

We also introduce a new format with this issue—interviews with practitioners (and authors), which apropos of the volume’s theme, provide rich historical perspective to inform the future path of collective bargaining in the academy. The first, “Centering anti-racism and social justice, toward a more perfect union,” is a conversation with Cecil E. Canton (former Associate Vice President) and Charles Toombs (current President) of the California Faculty Association, based on work each has published about about the historical progression and future work of CFA in moving towards a more social justice- centered union. The second, “Power despite precarity,” is a conversation with longtime contingent faculty labor activists and scholars, Joe Berry and Helena Worthen, about their recent book, which looks at the history of the contingent faculty labor movement, provides an in-depth exploration of the case and contract of the California Faculty Association in regard to contingent faculty, and identifies strategies for the future.

Selections from 50 years of annual conference proceedings. Working with the National Center’s Director, Bill Herbert, the co-editors selected papers from each of the decades of the conference proceedings, for a baker’s dozen of papers. Inevitably, such a small selection of (thirteen) papers from such a long span of time means that many valuable and interesting papers have been left out. As we go through a brief discussion of the papers we’ve selected and why, we will also refer the reader to some examples of other such papers that we feel are particularly noteworthy, and/or that are authored by folks who have made important academic contributions in other professional conferences and academic journals as well. Further, we note and encourage you to search on the JCBA website, which has a tab to connect to the most downloaded papers.

A half century spans a long period of time encompassing many developments in higher education collective bargaining and society. In making our thirteen selections, we have sought to include conference papers that were timely, as markers of key historical developments, as well as timeless, pointing to enduring issues in collective bargaining. As we elaborate a bit below, it is striking how many issues have re-emerged or been in play in an ongoing way throughout the decades. At the same time, even so, as with the successive, iterative negotiation of collective bargaining agreements, which involves debate, deliberation, and negotiation around similar issues, each negotiation builds on the foundation of previous ones. History, then, informs, is there to be learned from, and is always carried in some manner into the present, even as it is newly negotiated for the future.

In collective bargaining in higher education, as in society, what may once have seemed settled law and/or practice can become surprisingly unsettled decades later. Here we are, fifty years after Roe v Wade, more than ever (re)litigating, negotiating and navigating issues of gender and women’s reproductive, medical, and travel rights in ways that directly implicate universities. So, too, over six decades after a civil rights movement and landmark Supreme Court decisions and legislation, we continue to (re)negotiate and navigate the rights of minoritized and marginalized people in ways that play out in and shape higher education. Just as we continue to (re)legislate, litigate, and negotiate the right to vote, so we see similar ongoing struggles in regard to the collective bargaining rights of different categories of (academic) employees in different sectors of higher education. For the National Center’s entire history, and each decade of the editors’ collective experience, higher education has been in the midst of and subject to an austerity agenda. The polarized politics of the 1960s and 1970s are present again in current attacks and legislation regarding, assaulting, and banning Critical Race Theory, LGBTQ+ rights, and more, violating the academic freedom, human rights, and dignity of members and institutions in the higher education world, more than five decades after Stonewall. As the saying goes, plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.

As with collective bargaining negotiations, issues keep cycling back, as we see in selected papers of the past 50 years of conference proceedings. Yet it is not negotiated on the same territory by the same players with the same expectations as Nicholas DiGiovanni’s 2015 conference paper nicely articulates, and history and the future are not stories of linear, relentless, progress. Yet, if there is this ongoing back and forth, of two steps forward and one or more step(s) back, we hope and work towards that being in the context, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, of a larger trajectory of and arc of the moral universe that bends towards justice. So, we see it is in higher education collective bargaining, with new groups of employees at the table and with a more expansive range of issues being negotiated to intersect workplace and social justice.

The conference papers we have selected are bookended by Sidney Hook’s 1973 essay on “The academic mission and collective bargaining,” and Thomas Auxter’s 2016 retrospective analysis, “Collective bargaining and labor representation for higher education in a ‘right to work’ environment.” The matters they address look to learn from the past and enhance the future of higher education, as characterizes our special issue.

As an NYU Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Hook reflects on competing philosophers and perspectives on how to organize academic work(ers), contrasting the views of John Dewey and Arthur Lovejoy, the first President and first General Secretary of the American Association of University Professors. Whereas Dewey was also a founding member and early officer of the American Federation of Teachers (and held membership card number 1), and strongly supported unions, Lovejoy was a proponent of professional associations as the preferred organizing model, opposing unions, and juxtaposing the idea of a job to a calling. The differing views, and the contrasting perspectives they offer on being a “professional” continue to play out in different forms in higher education. Indeed, that difference has been of ongoing relevance in the AAUP. And in a full circle moment, interestingly, this past year, the AFT and AAUP have formed an affiliation arrangement that appears to give the former the lead role in collective bargaining and the latter an ongoing, lead role in academic freedom and policy. Notably, the position that Hook comes to is an important one in looking to the future.

"I conclude from these and related considerations that intelligent choice today is not between acceptance or rejection of the principle of collective bargaining but between the different forms of collective bargaining. … [W]e must ask: under what form of collective bargaining can the academic mission best be preserved and strengthened?"

That is something for us all to consider.

Yet, as Auxter’s 2016 analysis considers, the question of whether and to what extent employees have collective bargaining rights continues to be a vexed and contested matter. In light of the Harris v Quinn and Janus v AFSCME Supreme Court decisions, effectively making all states in some regard “right to work,” Auxter provides a history of how the United Faculty of Florida, first established in 1976, has navigated this environment, and the transformations it has undergone in the process. A central part of the story is its experience and developed capacity to effectively navigate state-level politics with legislatures and governors that had anti-union and anti-faculty agendas. Given how developments in Florida are currently unfolding, that is a particularly relevant historical context with valuable lessons for action.

Joel M. Douglas’ 1981 paper, “The Yeshiva case: One year later,” addresses an earlier, defining Supreme Court decision that has had profound effects on collective bargaining in higher education. If Douglas’ perspective is of one year later, we know now its ongoing ripple effects on the bargaining rights of faculty. That is particularly true in the independent sector of higher education, where Yeshiva has inhibited the growth of tenure-stream faculty units in private colleges and universities. It is true as well of contingent faculty with influence on governance. And the ripple effect has extended into public sector higher education as well. For example, in 2010, following Wisconsin’s attack on public sector employees’ bargaining rights (excepting police and firefighters) a piece of state legislation in Ohio that was signed and then repealed in a referendum, included Yeshiva-like language eliminating full-time faculty’s collective bargaining rights if they had a role in governance.

Going back to the 1973 conference proceedings, we also have selected Margaret Chandler and Connie Chiang’s paper, “Management rights issues in collective bargaining in higher education.” The paper provides a thorough, empirical, and what can serve for us now as a baseline analysis of management rights and faculty rights in ninety-one collective bargaining agreements (seventy of which were in community colleges, reflecting the predominance of this sector in higher education collective bargaining), modeling what has become a more consistent part of the National Center’s work under Bill Herbert’s leadership. Thus, now, we see the National Center not only collecting and cataloging contracts, but also detailing and analyzing developments in collective bargaining, expanding now to include data on strikes.

From almost a quarter century later, we selected Ernst Benjamin’s 1997 paper, “Faculty, unions, and management,” which provides a faculty perspective on faculty and management rights in collective bargaining. In contrast to Chandler and Chiang’s piece, this is not a detailed analysis of collective bargaining agreement language. Rather, it offers a thoughtful take on the subject that focuses on court cases, and particularly on shared governance, which, as Benjamin says, “can and often does coexist successfully with collective bargaining, to the benefit of the academic mission of the institution.” Although it is important to place this issue in the context of the early days of debating whether shared governance in the form of faculty senates and collective bargaining can coexist, it is also a matter of enduring significance in the adjudication of faculty’s collective bargaining rights, particularly in private institutions. We also direct attention in the papers of the 1997 proceedings to the related institutional governance and partisan politics issue, which we see much of today, in the form of “activist” trustees and the role of faculty unions in response to them in governance matters, in papers by a SUNY trustee, Candace deRussy, and by UUP President, William E. Scheuerman.

Two other papers, in 1988 Edward R. Hines’ “State support for higher education: A twenty year contextual analysis,” and in 1994, Christine Maitland’s “Collective bargaining and technology,” address issues of enduring significance. Hines’ paper offers historical perspective from Illinois State’s Grapevine report that tracks the fundamental shift in public higher education in relative declines in state appropriations versus significant increases in tuition and fees. The combined framing of a policy context in terms of an austerity agenda with climbing college costs for students has for half a century been at the center of collective bargaining negotiations.

So, too, as it is for all workers and industries, the introduction of new technologies, in this case, instructional and delivery technologies is an enduring focus of negotiations between labor and management. Maitland’s thorough empirical analysis of collective bargaining agreements nationally speaks to patterns in the workload, compensation, and intellectual property provisions that have been negotiated. The broad pattern is of provisions being more “defensive” in giving some protections to faculty and ensuring compensation and some level of claims on copyright for distance education courses than they are proactive in ensuring faculty voice in decision making around instructional technology issues. Contract language was more common and extensive in community college contracts, but overall was still limited in terms of the number of contracts with provisions and their scope. For a more current perspective, nearly two decades later, in a 2016 conference paper, “Copyleft, copyright, and copy for the public interest,” and in a 2015 JCBA article, “What are we negotiating for: Public interest bargaining,” Gary Rhoades details the more extensive incidence of contract provisions on technology issues, and offers examples of contract provisions that proactively address public interest issues surrounding technology use and training, and distance education intellectual property rights that go beyond the immediate interests of the two parties at the bargaining table.

On another matter of enduring significance, two of the papers we selected focus on contingent faculty employment. One, by Frank Cosco, in 2008, “Vancouver Community College, New models of contingent faculty inclusion,” features what for many in the contingent faculty labor movement, serves as one of the gold standards of collective bargaining agreements. It also is an example of the several papers over the years addressing collective bargaining in Canada. Further, it focuses on the institutional realm of community colleges that ironically, given its predominance in terms of union density, is under-emphasized in the papers.

A second paper, in 2015 by Karen Stubaus, “The professionalization of non-tenure track faculty in the United States: Three case studies,” details the history and current status of non-tenure track faculty, whose numbers have been expanding considerably. Through the vehicle of three cases, Stubaus provides significant insight into the different configurations by which, within and beyond the collective bargaining agreement, non-tenure track faculty have negotiated improved, more professional working conditions that have incorporated them more into the academic life of their institutions and academic units. The cases of Rutgers University, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Oregon each provide quite a different take in the configuration of the bargaining units, which speaks to significant differences in institutional history and state law. And yet in each case, similar issues are addressed.

On the issue of adjunct faculty, we also want to call attention historically to the 1982 conference proceedings with one of the first discussions of the increased use of adjunct faculty. Nancy L. Hodes, Deputy Director of the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations in New York provides a frank discussion of the political and economic rationales (“Use Justified”) for the hiring of larger numbers of “part-timers” (the dehumanizing and inaccurate term is in itself a marker of the times), entitled, “The use and abuse of part-timers-I: Casual employees, scabs, or saviors?” The companion, Part II piece is written by Nuala McGann Drescher, President of the United University Professions, who speaks to the legitimacy and quality of these faculty, and the need to strengthen collective bargaining rights and working conditions for them, integrating them into bargaining units. She also importantly draws attention to the “affirmative action” dimension of exploiting these faculty, given the larger proportions of them who are women. At this point, both contributions center a claim or a concern about the erosion of full-time faculty. To give a sense of the changing times, a recent contribution to JCBA (Rhoades, 2021) points to contingent faculty’s centrality to and leadership in the academic labor movement.

One of the papers we selected addresses another employment segment, graduate employees, that, as with contingent faculty, has experienced dramatic increases in the growth of new bargaining units in the 2000s, as detailed in Bill Herbert’s 2016 JCBA article, “The winds of changes shift: An analysis of recent growth in bargaining units and representation efforts in higher education.” The 1999 conference paper, “The Current Status of Graduate Student Unions: An Employer's Perspective,” by Daniel J. Julius provides a turn-of-the-century summary of graduate employee unionization. He offers an extensive review of national patterns and issues in relation to this realm of organizing, from a management perspective as well as of someone who has published on these issues. The timing of this review is noteworthy, as in the next two decades graduate employee unionization proliferated, particularly in the private sector, as the National Center’s Bill Herbert’s 2016 JCBA piece, “The winds of changes shift,” documents. Moreover, the subsequent decades have seen several NLRB rulings and reversals, as well as state-level employment board rulings that have also influenced patterns of graduate student unionization. Further, that realm of organizing and negotiation has seen a significant expansion of the sorts of issues addressed in collective bargaining, centering social justice issues, a point nicely captured in another paper we refer you to, Jon Curtiss’ 2015 history and discussion of important current issues, in bargaining for one of the earliest and most important graduate student unions, the Graduate Employees Organization at the University of Michigan.

On the latter matter, we have selected two papers that address social justice issues. The first is a 1993 paper by Rachel Hendrickson, “Sexual harassment on campus and a union’s dilemma.” It is part of an entire section of papers on discrimination, including several papers on the Americans with Disabilities Act and on pay equity. Hendrickson offers an analysis of national data on collective bargaining agreements, first noting that relatively few address sexual harassment in any great detail, and then providing some examples of contracts that in contrast contain extensive language. As well, she walks through the various questions that surround how to address sexual harassment in relation to the campus policies and procedures that are being developed and applied outside of collective bargaining. Notably, Hendrickson closes by encouraging labor and management “to institute training for all supervisors and faculty and to provide it on an ongoing basis.” That suggestion is all the more relevant today, three decades later. It is also notable that although much attention is directed in the paper to campus-based processes, one of the almost universal demands of graduate and postdoc unions today, after decades of largely unsatisfactory experience of institutions’ handling of such matters, is for access to independent external arbitration in matters of harassment and discrimination.

A decade earlier, the 1984 conference also had a series of papers on sex discrimination. Although it is not as focused on collective bargaining, there are some good contributions, including an overview by Bernice Resnick Sandler addressing the “times that try men’s souls.” There are also contributions on case law, and on comparable worth and grievance claims. A paper that is focused on collective bargaining is Nina Rothchild’s case study of the Minnesota experience in relation to the state’s collective bargaining law and comparable worth legislation.

A second paper we have selected on social justice issues is a 2015 conference paper by Derryn Moten, of Alabama State University, addressing social and labor justice in the context of HBCUs, in “The history of collective bargaining in higher education: The case of HBCUs.” In an historical review of HBCUs that intersects with racial justice and class-based justice through unionization issues, Moten calls our attention to the fact that Howard University was the site of the AFT’s first higher education affiliate, Local 33, in 1918 (though it disbanded in 1921).

In a revealing analysis of anti-labor laws and policy in the Reconstruction years, and in the 20^th century with anti-strike and “right to work” laws in Alabama, Moten intersects labor history with the history of Jim Crow and White Supremacy in the South. The lessons for the academic labor movement in intersecting workplace and social justice should be clear. In addition to pointing to those HBCUs in which faculty are unionized (in most cases, with AAUP affiliates), Moten bookends his piece with two historical quotes. The first, from 1920, is about White paternalism and HBCUs, “Neither the prestige nor the income of any Negro college has ever been appreciably augmented by the administration of a white president,” relating the point to desirable working conditions as well. Moten sets up the second quote with a forward-looking call to current Black presidents and faculty of HBCUs in relation to respecting and not fighting the collective bargaining efforts of employees: “[G]iven the racial history of HBCUs, it might seem ironic that the fight has moved from a struggle between Black folk and White folk over equitable treatment to a struggle where Black folk fight with Black folk over equitable treatment.” The last line of Moten’s paper is a Frederick Douglas quote, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” Fast forward 100 years, after Moten’s article, and the non-tenure track faculty at Howard University have done precisely that, successfully unionized, affiliated with SEIU Local 500, and signed collective bargaining agreements in 2022.

Finally, we have selected Nicholas DiGiovanni’s 2015 paper, “This much I know is true: The five intangible influences on collective bargaining.” It is among the most downloaded items from the website. And in many ways, it encapsulates the gestalt of academic collective bargaining. Based on nearly four decades of experience, DiGiovanni speaks to the intricacies and subtleties of the bargaining process, each round and cycle of which is somewhat unpredictable. Focusing on the process and performance of negotiating at the table, he identifies five factors that are part of the contingency of how the bargaining will play out—history, expectations, the nature and character of the players, timing, and catharsis. It is a profoundly practical reminder that for all the formal, legal dimensions of the process, collective bargaining is a human process, in which cultural and affective influences play out.

Finally, as a preface to the Baker’s Dozen of exemplary proceedings papers republished in this Volume, Daniel J. Julius has provided a contemporary commentary and a perspective on some academic collective bargaining “small world” observations spanning 50 years of National Center conferences.

We sincerely hope that you enjoy Volume 14, honoring the National Center’s 50^th anniversary. We hope as well that this issue (as do the journal, the annual conference, and the Center) serves the goal of enhancing our collective future by sharing and circulating the collective experience, expertise, empirical analysis, insight, and wisdom of our contributors and community. For that is at the heart of the National Center’s mission and work.

Eds.

Op-Ed:

A New Foundation, Revisited by Richard J. Boris

Articles:

Protecting Academic Freedom Through Collective Bargaining: An AAUP Perspective by Michael Mauer

In the Beginning, Long Time Ago: A Brief History of the National Center’s Origin and Evolution by William A. Herbert

Power Despite Precarity: A Conversation with the Authors, Joe Berry and Helena Worthen by Gary Rhoades

Centering Anti-Racism and Social Justice, Toward A More Perfect Union: A Conversation with the Authors, Cecil E. Canton and Charles Toombs

by Gary Rhoades

Practitioner Perspective:

Factors that Led to Crossing the Picket-Line: An Autoethnography of a Faculty Striker by Giovanna Follo

Proceedings Materials:

50th Anniversary: Proceedings of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions by Daniel J. Julius

The Academic Mission and Collective Bargaining by Sidney Hook

Management Rights Issues in Collective Bargaining in Higher Education by

Margaret K. Chandler and Connie Chiang

The Yeshiva Case: One Year Later by Joel M. Douglas

State Support of Higher Education: A 20-Year Contextual Analysis Using Two-Year Percentage Gains In State Tax Appropriations by Edward R. Hines

Sexual Harassment on Campus and a Union's Dilemma by Rachel Hendrickson

Collective Bargaining and Technology by Christine Maitland

Faculty and Management Rights In Higher Education Collective Bargaining: A Faculty Perspective by Ernst Benjamin

The Current Status of Graduate Student Unions: An Employer's Perspective

by Daniel J. Julius

New Models of Contingent Faculty Inclusion by Frank Cosco

The Professionalizaton of Non-Tenure Track Faculty in the United States: Three Case Studies From Public Research Institutions: Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, University of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, and University of Oregon by Karen Stubaus

This Much I Know is True: The Five Intangible Influences on Collective Bargaining by Nicholas DiGiovanni Jr.

The History Of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education: The Case of HBCUs

by Derryn Moten

Collective Bargaining and Labor Representation for Higher Education in a “Right to Work” Environment by Thomas Auxter

The Journal is an open access, peer-reviewed, online periodical, the purpose of which is to advance research and scholarly thought related to academic collective bargaining and to make relevant and pragmatic peer-reviewed research readily accessible to practitioners and to scholars in the field.

We encourage scholars and practitioners in the fields of collective bargaining, labor relations, and labor history to submit articles for potential publication in future volumes.

The Journal is supported, in part, by a generous contribution from TIAA and is hosted by the institutional repository of Eastern Illinois University.

New Book: Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education:

A Labor History, edited by Eric Fure-Slocum and Claire Goldstene