Unions

Higher Education faculty and staff are a highly unionized work force. "About 45 percent of the 3,331 institutions of higher education are public, and they employ about 71 percent of the roughly 741,000 faculty and enroll about 78 percent of the over 13 million students in higher education. Most of these public institutions (about 61 percent) are unionized." Gary Rhoades, Journal of Higher Education (May/June 1993). Most faculty in private institutions are not eligible to bargain under the Yeshiva Supreme Court ruling that determined that faculty were managers and ineligible to bargain. Support staff in higher education are unionized in both the public and private sector. Richard Hurd estimates that almost one-third of staff employees are unionized. Among clerical workers almost 40 percent are unionized and among blue color workers the percentage is almost 43 percent (Directory of Staff Bargaining Agents in Institutions of Higher Education, 1995).

The NEA Higher Education Research Center collects data on faculty and staff unions. NEA represents bargaining units among faculty, support staff, and academic professionals at both two- and four-year institutions. See the list of the NEA Higher Education bargaining units.

The Research Center also publishes national and state salary information based on data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics and the College and University Personnel Association. The national data is published annually in the NEA Almanac of Higher Education. The state salary data can be obtained by selecting your state and the specific salary information you want. Each year the Almanac has a chapter on bargaining trends.

• Find a Higher Ed Local

• Faculty Salaries by State

• Bargaining Professional Development

  The 2003 Almanac chapter discusses contract provisions for sabbaticals and other forms of professional development.

• Fall 2002, Thought & Action
  National Implications of Local Union Activity

• Spring 1999, Thought & Action articles

  Faculty and Staff Look At Their Roles in Governance

  Faculty Union Organizing on the Research Campus

  The New Unionism Replaces the Old At Shawnee State

• Technology Issues in Bargaining: The New Unionism

  The 1999 Almanac chapter discusses bargaining technology provisions.

• Collective Bargaining and Salaries by Discipline

  1995-96 1994-95
  CUPA collects salary data from the land grant colleges and provides information on salary by discipline and collective bargaining.

• Legal Regulation of Collective Bargaining in Colleges and Universities

  The 1998 Almanac chapter discusses the legal status of collective bargaining in America's colleges and universities.

• The Hidden Campus Workforce: (De)Investing in Staff

  An analysis of existing contract provisions and language on contracting-out, from the 1998 Almanac.

• Negotiating Academic Restructuring

  The 1996 Almanac chapter, looked at management rights, retrenchment, and technology in higher education contracts.

• Reconfiguring the Professional Workforce

  The 1997 Almanac chapter, focused on contract language for temporary faculty.

• UDC Faculty Association/NEA Gets Favorable Ruling!

  The United States District Court holds that University of the District of Columbia breached collective bargaining agreement with Faculty Association in laying off faculty.

• Union Officers Can Serve On Senate

• New Unionism in Higher Education

  Remarks by Bob Chase, president, National Education Association, to the National Center for Collective Bargaining in Higher Education at Baruch College

• Making History Together

  Bob Chase, president, National Education Association, speaks to Youngstown State University.

• Bob Chase: Higher Education and the New Unionism

  Thought & Action, Spring 1997

• Quality in Higher Education is a Union Issue

  NEA president, Bob Chase introduces the new unionism.

• Beware Higher Ed's Newest Budget Twist

  Thought & Action, Spring 1997

• Labor and Employment Relations Links

  LaborNet@IGC is a community of labor unions, activists, and organizations using computer networks for information-sharing and collaboration with the intent of increasing the human rights and economic justice of workers.

• Canadian Association of University Teachers

  Find out about the collective bargaining agreements of your international colleagues in Canada. The Canadian Association of University Teachers, a federation of faculty associations/unions, is a national voice of university academic staff in Canada.

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