Labor Relations Commons^™

Every Grain Of Sand: 2024 Changes To The Scope Of Higher Education Unionization, William A. Herbert, Joseph Van Der Naald, Jacob Apkarian

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

In this research note, we supplement the findings presented in the National Center’s 2024 Directory of Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Institutions of Higher Education. We aggregate and analyze data on changes in academic collective bargaining relationships for faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate and undergraduate student employees in the year 2024. Our findings demonstrate that the growth in academic collective bargaining over the past decade that we documented in the 2024 Directory has continued. However, we find some significant contractions in faculty unionization through institutional closures and the revocation of bargaining units in the state of Florida. The research …

"No Pay, No Ras": Resident Assistant Unionization Amidst University Backlash, Justin Weller

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

While resident assistant (RA) unions have existed in the United States for over 20 years, RA unionization has accelerated on college campuses in recent years. This article explores the institutional responses to RA unionization through a distributive justice framework. I argue unionization aligns with the distributive justice framework and union-busting strategies do not align. I provide practical recommendations for institutions to align their practices with the National Labor Relations Act and relevant jurisprudence. Implications include a need to study RAs’ experiences in unionization and a continued focus on the ongoing legal challenges that may impact future unionization.

Negotiating The Future: The Role Of Labor Unions In Responding To Automation And Technology Developments In The Entertainment Industry, João Branco Chaves

Student Publications

The entertainment industry has undergone profound changes due to the rapid advancement of automation and technology, significantly impacting the labor force behind its productions. Labor unions, such as the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA), have been at the forefront of negotiating contracts and protecting workers’ rights amidst these changes. This paper examines the pivotal role that labor unions play in shaping the negotiation processes within the entertainment industry, focusing on their contributions and challenges in responding to technological shifts. It also identifies gaps and contradictions in the research, …

College Athlete Unionization, Roberto L. Corrada

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston has opened the door to serious consideration of the potential for college athlete unionization and collective bargaining. The ruling, highlighted by Justice Kavanaugh's concurring opinion, suggests collective bargaining as a potential solution to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's ("NCAA's") antitrust vulnerabilities. This Article delves into the initial legal and strategic questions surrounding the prospect of unionization, focusing particularly on NCAA Division I football and basketball, due to their significant revenue generation making them prime candidates for unionization efforts.

The National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB" or "Board") is positioned to …

In The Beginning, Long Time Ago: A Brief History Of The National Center’S Origin And Evolution, William A. Herbert

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

This article presents a brief overview of events leading to the creation of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions (National Center) in 1972 at the City University of New York (CUNY) and then summarizes the National Center’s evolving leadership, programming, research, and publications over the past half-century. The article is tied with the theme of the National Center’s 50^th anniversary conference in March 2023: Collective Bargaining in Higher Education: Looking Back, Looking Forward: 1973-2023. It demonstrates the uniqueness of the National Center’s origin as a higher education labor-management research center, …

Invisible Hand Or Collective Command: Unionized Effect On State Wages, Michael Felix

Business and Economics Presentations

No abstract provided.

The History Books Tell It? Collective Bargaining In Higher Education In The 1940s, William A. Herbert

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

This article presents a history of unionization and collective bargaining in higher education during and just after World War II, decades before the establishment of statutory frameworks for labor representation. It examines the collective bargaining program adopted by the University of Illinois in 1945, along with contracts negotiated at other institutions, which demonstrated support for employee self-organization. It will also presents counter-examples of institutions using the courts and congressional investigators to defeat unionization efforts. . Lastly, the article will examine the role of United Public Workers of America (UPWA) and its predecessor unions in organizing and negotiating on behalf of …

Workshop: Training On Unionization And Collective Bargaining For Academic Labor - Handout: Which Form Will Your Negotiations Take (R. Ufberg)

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Workshop: Training On Unionization And Collective Bargaining For Academic Labor - Handout: Scenario For Private Contract Campaign

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Workshop: Training On Unionization And Collective Bargaining For Academic Labor - Handout: Contract Campaign Act I

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Workshop: Training On Unionization And Collective Bargaining For Academic Labor - Handout: Agenda

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Workshop Agenda

Workshop: Training On Unionization And Collective Bargaining For Administrators, Nicholas Digiovanni

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Negotiating a First Collective Bargaining Agreement

I. Importance of the Initial Collective Bargaining Agreement

II. Establishing Institutional Goals and Principles

III. First Considerations at the Table: Ground rules

IV. Key Contract Building Blocks for the Administration

V. Other Clauses of Particular Value to the Union

VII. Miscellaneous Concerns

Broken Glass: The Decline Of Corporate Paternalism And Welfare Capitalism, A Critical Analysis Of One Company’S Systematic Socio-Economic Metamorphosis, Doug Bruno

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Academic Collective Bargaining: Patterns And Trends, Curtis R. Sproul, Neil Bucklew, Jeffery D. Houghton

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Educational services, particularly higher education, has slowly and methodically become one of the most heavily unionized segments, with much greater representation than traditional labor segments. Despite these changes, the increase in academic collective bargaining has not been well documented. Consequently, the purpose of the current paper is to examine recent trends in academic collective bargaining and to compare these trends with the current unionization and collective bargaining situation in other major industries in the United States. We begin with a comparative analysis of unionization in the United States by industry. The summary data we present indicate that the educational services …

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 …

Wage Distribution Impacts Of Higher Education Faculty Unionization, Charles S. Wassell Jr., David W. Hedrick, Steven E. Henson, John M. Krieg

Economics Faculty Scholarship

The literature on the effects of unions on the distribution of wages at the macroeconomic and inter-industry levels has given little attention to the effects at the firm level. At the same time, research on collective bargaining impacts in higher education has focused on the overall wage level rather than on the distribution of salaries. Using panel data on individual faculty members, we find faculty unionization to be associated with a significant flattening of the wage distribution across academic disciplines. This has implications for why faculty might choose to unionize, even in the absence of an overall wage premium.

The Impact Of Unionization On University Performance: A Cross-Sectional Time Series Analysis, Mark K. Cassell

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

In 1968 the union movement in higher education was launched on the CUNY campuses in New York when CUNY held the first academic labor union election on an “integrated, heterogeneous, multi-campus system” (Ladd and Lipset 1973). In the nearly five decades since that historic election, unionization has grown to cover more than a third of all public four-year institutions and 40 percent of faculty at those public institutions (see Figure 1). While unionization is more common at larger institutions, Figure 1 illustrates that even among the smallest public institutions, unionization has increased over time.

Labor Struggles, New Social Movements, And America's Favorite Pastime: New York Workers Take On New Era Cap Company, Victoria Carty

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Contemporary economic globalization, which is driven and regulated primarily by multinational corporations, has a direct impact on workers' lives. Trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tend to be controlled by corporate interests in the wealthy, industrialized nations. Those countries set the agenda to protect the interests of foreign investors and facilitate the mobility of capital, but they do little to protect the interests of labor. In response, workers in both the global North and South have been forced to rely on their own individual efforts to protect themselves against unfair labor practices. This article presents …

Mother Jones, Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

Mother Jones was a union organizer and activist in the U.S. labor movement. She fought to alleviate the misery of workers in mines, railroad yards, factories, and mills across the country. Her reform efforts led to the abolition of child labor, acceptance of the eight-hour workday, and implementation of Social Security and the minimum wage.

Labor Law, Industrial Relations And Employee Choice: The State Of The Workplace In The 1990s: Hearings Of The Commission On The Future Of Worker-Management Relations, 1993-94, Richard N. Block, John Beck, Daniel H. Kruger

Upjohn Press

Block, Beck and Kruger present detailed examples from the testimony given during the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations (commonly called the Dunlop Commission) national and regional hearings. The Commission, by hearing from a wide range of stakeholders, sought to define the state of industrial relations and labor law in the U.S. during the 1990s. Because the Commission's final reports were concerned with policy matters, they only briefly summarized the testimony. This volume draws deeply from the testimony, citing many examples that clearly illustrate the wide variety of relationships between workers and management today. In addition, it shows how …

Pathways To Change: Case Studies Of Strategic Negotiations, Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Robert B. Mckersie, Richard E. Walton

Upjohn Press

The authors identify and analyze the strategies for change and techniques most often used in today's labor negotiations. Nearly gone, they say, is the traditional "arms length" approach used by negotiators in the past. Instead, modern collective bargaining is characterized mainly by divergent strategies the authors characterize as either "forcing" (highly contentious) or "fostering" (highly cooperative). A dozen detailed case studies from a variety of industries are presented that show when, why and how these strategies are used, by whom, and to what result. These cases clearly demonstrate the use of both forcing and fostering strategies, as well as their …