Education Commons^™

Negotiating For Curriculum & Class Size, 2011-13: One Faculty Union’S Perspective, Steve Hicks, Amy L. Rosenberger

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

The article walks the reader through the process of proposing, revising, and finally accepting by both sides of a new clause in the APSCUF-PASSHE collective bargaining agreement covering curriculum and class size. The clause took multiple forms over the course of over two years of negotiations and reveals the evolving priorities of the two sides over time.

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 …

Organizational Culture, Knowledge Structures, And Relational Messages In Organizational Negotiation: A Systems Approach, Vincent P. Cavataio, Robert S. Hinck

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

This study examines a recent bargaining process between the Faculty Association and Central Michigan University. Taking a systems approach, we began with the assumption that a healthy organizational culture produces negative feedback which can help keep participants at the bargaining table despite disagreement. However, if organizational members’ relationships are threatened, organizational culture unravels as destructive messages provide positive feedback to disrupt the system and make impasse more likely. To understand how an university’s culture is impacted during contract negotiations we examined messages published in a university student newspaper, transcripts from the local NPR station, CMU’s press releases, a Facebook page, …

Shelter From The Storm: Rekindling Research On Collective Bargaining And Representation Issues, William A. Herbert

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

The National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions (National Center) is a four-decade old institution that is supported by and located at Hunter College, City University of New York. The National Center was founded in the wake of the granting of collective bargaining rights by various states and localities to public employees including higher education faculty members and shortly after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asserted jurisdiction over private institutions of higher education.

Consistent with its mission, the National Center intends to be an engine for rekindling, incubating and promoting research and …

Positive Collaboration: Beyond Labor Conflict And Labor Peace, Richard Boris

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Institutions of higher education collectively constitute a major economic concentration that ranks—by whatever measure: resources, budgets, endowments, employees, constituencies—among the major industries in the United States. The unionized academic U.S. workforce ranks sixth among organized labor. Yet, when compared to the top-tier manufacturing industries of steel or automobile or to national unions such as the UAW or the Teamsters, both the public institutions of higher education and their academic unions lack national visibility, lack influence on national debates, and, most tellingly, lack major successes in the quest for public monies. Health care, the environment, energy policies, and the current global …

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.

Bargaining Quality In Part-Time Faculty Working Conditions: Beyond Just-In-Time Employment And Just-At-Will Non-Renewal, Gary Rhoades

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Two aspects of part-time faculty members’ working conditions that are problematic for educational quality are examined in this article—“just-in-time” employment and “just-at-will” non-renewal. With an eye to enhancing student learning conditions, the article explores feasible strategies that are found in the collective bargaining agreements of units for part-time only bargaining units. Collective bargaining provides a reasonable framework for rethinking, redefining, and renegotiating the working conditions of faculty working in part-time positions to improve student learning outcomes and educational quality.

It's All About The Power, James Castagnera

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

The Fiscal Crisis Of The Campus: The View From California, R. Jeffrey Lustig

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

The significance of the disinvestment in American baccalaureate, Ph.D. and community college institutions in recent years can hardly be exaggerated. The quandary posed by the attendant reduced funding goes beyond issues of crowded classrooms and dilapidated facilities; ultimately it questions whether our higher education will continue to be a gateway to equality and guarantor of opportunity, a path to broader horizons for citizens—or if it will be transformed into a bulwark of social inequality and vehicle for narrow vocational instruction.

Determining how to successfully grapple with this decline in funding is hindered, however, by the ways in which policy-makers and …

Financing Higher Education: Privatization, Resistance And Renewal, Gerald Turkel

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

The fiscal crisis of higher education currently is being resolved largely through a financing policy of privatization, a pattern that increasingly shifts responsibility to individual students and their families. The politics of privatization makes it ever more difficult for lower-income students to attend college and has become a major financial burden for middle-income people. Beyond the direct financial consequences, privatization has increasingly subordinated the research and educational missions of higher education to the countervailing imperatives of economic growth and competitiveness. Privatization has enhanced the entrepreneurial and corporate features of universities and colleges, increasingly shifting the values of higher education away …

Negotiating Within A Shared Governance Format, Suzanne C. Wagner, C. Henrik Borgstrom

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

The act of unionization creates a sense of unity among faculty, however, it also creates an adversarial relationship with administration. Although both the administration and the faculty believe they have the university’s best interests in mind, contract negotiations are typically contentious and divisive. A unique process for negotiations is presented illustrating how working within a shared governance format can enable faculty and administration to work together in preparation, research and analysis, problem solving and mutual gains bargaining that results in success for both parties and, ultimately, the university.

Examining The Decline In Bargaining Power In Faculty Labor Unions In The United States: The Effects Of Reduced Monopoly Power In Providing Public Higher Education, Lynn A. Smith, Robert S. Balough

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

This study examines the decline in the economic power of faculty labor unions in public higher education in the United States in recent years. The authors assume the labor union is a utility maximizing entity and that income accrues to the “union family.” The union family attempts to maximize this income. By analyzing collective bargaining agreements and hiring practices between the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, the authors construct bargaining indices. Because this study is focused on the change in bargaining power of labor unions in public higher education …

Collective Bargaining In United Kingdom Higher Education, Helen Fairfoul, Laurence Hopkins, Geoff White

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

This article provides an overview of the collective bargaining system in United Kingdom (UK) higher education and considers some of the current challenges. The arrangements for determining the pay of staff in UK higher education reflect both the historical context of the UK funding system and the unique nature of UK industrial relations law. From World War II, the funding of UK higher education has predominantly come from central government spending with a strong central framework of policy and governance. Since the 1960s, the higher education sector has grown dramatically, both in terms of student numbers and the number of …

Universities Must Continue To Bargain, Thomas J. Kriger

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Faculty with collective bargaining rights across the nation will—and should—agree with Daniel Julius’s conclusion that “College and university leaders should continue to honor collectively negotiated agreements maintaining relationships with faculty unions.” When implemented correctly, these agreements, as Julius points out, serve the interests of both faculty and administrators. Such agreements codify and protect due process rights for both sides. They also provide both faculty and administrators with a level of predictability and stability in labor relations that are necessary on today’s complex and hectic campuses. While I agree with almost everything Julius has written here, there are a number of …

The Fiscal Crisis Of The Campus: The View From California, R. Jeffrey Lustig

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Over the last generation, state governments have undertaken a major disinvestment in higher education. The questions raised by these funding reductions go beyond matters of crowded classrooms, dilapidated facilities, and altered pedagogies to challenge the basic function of college and university education in the United States. Will higher education continue to be the gateway to equality and provider of broad horizons for citizens, or will it be transformed into a bulwark of social privilege and narrow conveyor of vocational skills for private consumers? These are the ultimate questions posed by the funding priorities of the state legislatures in America today.

Financing Higher Education: Privatization, Resistance, And Renewal, Gerald Turkel

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Higher education’s financial crisis is being resolved largely through a politics of privatization, changing patterns of financing that increasingly shift responsibilities to individual students and their families. The politics of privatization makes it ever more difficult for low income students to attend college and has become a major financial burden for middle income people. Beyond cost shifting, privatization has increasingly subordinated the research and educational missions of higher education to imperatives of economic growth and competitiveness. Privatization has enhanced the entrepreneurial and corporate features of universities and colleges, changing the values of higher education away from notions of common property …

Social Networking And Faculty Discipline: A Pennsylvania Case Points Toward Confrontational Times, Requiring Collective Bargaining Attention, James Ottavio Castagnera, John Lanza Iv

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

While social-networking sites like Facebook are still relatively new to the working world, employers monitoring their employee’s activities and conduct outside the workplace is not. The most alluring aspects of social-networking sites is the ease in which an account can be created and maintained, the personalization options they present to the user, and a uniquely 21st century way of keeping in contact with friends and family. Social-networking sites are truly a wonder of the modern age, where by typing out a few sentences, uploading some photographs, videos and making some friend requests, one can present his or her entire life …

Universities Should Continue To Bargain, Daniel J. Julius

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

College and university leaders should to continue to honor collectively negotiated agreements maintaining relationships with faculty unions, rather than avail themselves of tempting opportunities to redraw the labor and human resources map. To understand why requires some background on the academic union movement, the impact of unions on university management, and the potential advantages of collective bargaining.

This Much I Know Is True: The Five Intangible Influences On Collective Bargaining, Nicholas Digiovanni

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Studies of collective bargaining have often centered on technique, style and the economic data that each side can use in bargaining a labor contract. Often overlooked, however, are the more subtle factors that influence the outcome of a round of bargaining. This article will reflect upon five of those intangible influences, namely, 1) the role of history; 2) the setting of expectations; 3) the nature and character of the people in the process; 4) the aspects of timing in negotiations and 5) the element of catharsis. The author has noted these five factors in his long career at the bargaining …