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The Impact Of Unionization On University Performance, Mark Cassell, Odeh Halaseh

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

This study examines faculty unions’ impact on the organizational efficiency and effectiveness of public four-year institutions of higher learning. The article theorizes the causal connections between faculty unions to higher education performance. The study also presents results of a cross-sectional time series analysis and a cross-sectional analysis of higher education performance using data from the Department of Education’s Integrated Post Secondary Data System (IPEDS) spanning more than two decades and over 430 public universities and colleges. We find support for the view that unionization improves organizational efficiency and effectiveness. At the same time the research raises important methodological and substantive …

From Ivory To Babel To A New Foundation, Richard Boris

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

During my 12 years at the NationalCenter for Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, I observed with increasing frustration the inability of administration and faculty leaders—union and governance—to fully grasp, analyze, and find pathways out of public higher education’s current existential crisis.

My many years of observing leaders of public higher education lead me to the inescapable conclusion that together the leaders share a culture that shorts strategic planning, thinking, and boldness and instead favors ad-hoc, incremental acceptance of the ever-changing, slimmed-down state of affairs. The rarified bubbles of presidential cabinets and union boards symbiotically promote policies that, …

Bargaining Market Equity Adjustments By Rank And Discipline, Jonathan P. Blitz, Jeffrey F. Cross

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Faculty contract negotiations generally include wages, hours, and other conditions of employment as well as mutually agreed non-mandatory subjects of bargaining. Negotiators typically address wages in terms of across-the-board increases, promotion in rank, merit increases, and one-time signing bonuses. Less typically, faculty salary negotiations include various forms of equity adjustments and salary increases linked to the underlying market and social forces and to salary compression that may, or may not, be related to these forces. The authors describe how they negotiated differential discipline-specific target salaries based in part on College and University Personnel Association faculty salary data.

Collective Begging At Its Best: Labor-Management Relations In South Dakota, Gary Aguiar

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Public employee labor unions in South Dakota possess a feeble set of bargaining rights, so weak it should be considered “collective begging.” However, our recent contract contains significant victories despite decades of playing defense. What lessons can be learned from this experience that might help other similarly situated faculty unions? What does this case study teach us about the disparity of power, especially where labor has fewer legal and political tools than management? I apply DiGiovanni’s (2011) typology of “intangible influences” on collective bargaining to explain our success. As DiGiovanni predicts, history and timing played a large role in influencing …