In recent years, issues pertaining to graduate student union organizing have been at the center of several political battles and court cases. This attention is, at least in part, due to the growth of graduate student unions at a time when organized labor's influence is receding in other, more traditionally unionized sectors of the labor…

On February 1, 2012, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed a "right to work" (RTW) provision in the state's labor laws, making Indiana the 23rd RTW state in the nation. In addition to becoming the 23rd RTW state in the nation, Indiana is the first in more than a decade to pass a law undermining the ability of unions to organize and represent their…

Inside every airline magazine is an ad in which Chester L. Karrass insists, "You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate." This suggests that the "art" of negotiation is more important than the substance of any issue under consideration. When it's time to negotiate at the author's college, the faculty union's "professional…

Traditionally, academic freedom has been understood as an individual right and a negative liberty. As William Tierney and Vincente Lechuga explain, "Academic freedom, although an institutional concept, was vested in the individual professor." The touchstone document on academic freedom, the American Association of University Professor's (AAUP)…

In 2002, during yet another budget crisis produced in large measure by the state's tax-cutting mania, Massachusetts proposed a massive cut in the university's budget. Through an early retirement incentive, the state wanted to reduce the faculty by 10 percent. No one was prepared to fight back. Despite UMass Amherst's long history of activism, and…

Reminisces about last year's educator's strike In Hawaii, the first time a strike has shut down a state's entire education system. Relishes the unity and power demonstrated by colleagues at the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, but acknowledges that there are great differences in what different sectors of the faculty--especially research…

To provide a better sense of how academic unions handle a strike situation, examines six unions who, between 1996 and 2000, went through strikes. Discusses the key issues and outcomes of the strikes. (EV)

Explores why faculty at Illinois State University rejected unionization. Highlights some lessons from the unionization effort by examining dynamics of the organizing campaign from the first meeting in July 1998 until the representation election in March 2000. (EV)

Discussion of higher education faculty and unions urges a "public professional unionism" in which faculty and staff work cooperatively with administrators to promote quality in instruction and a high level of professionalism through participative decision making. Argues that higher education unions must also pay more attention in collective…

Recounts how the part-time faculty at Chicago's Columbia College (Illinois) dramatically improved salaries and gained a strong voice in college decision making through unionization. Emphasis is on the negotiation process which worked to obtain the group's goals without undermining the "rather friendly college environment." (DB)

Two graduate teaching assistants, veterans of the Yale (Connecticut) "grade strike," discuss the importance of graduate students to the academic enterprise and how "the casualization of academic labor" impacts on higher learning in general and faculty in particular. They urge faculty to join with graduate assistants to check this trend and support…

Describes how collective bargaining has emerged as an important factor in higher education, with some faculty resisting unionism as a threat to status and dignity. Seeks to refute the source of such resistance, the "myth of academe," or the belief that faculty lead lives devoted to selfless pursuit of knowledge in institutions carefully organized…

In an interview, the president of the National Education Association (NEA) discusses issues in higher education, including the NEA's role, relationships between higher education and elementary-secondary education, professionalism and the union, technological advancement, the role of postsecondary education, allocation of educational resources,…

Key events and factors in the unionization of faculty at Youngstown State University (Ohio) are chronicled in the early years of the institution's inclusion in the state higher education system, 1967-73. Focus is on the early process of faculty organization, selection of a union, and collective bargaining during retrenchment. (MSE)

This paper suggests that higher education's response to declining resources (budget cuts, program eliminations, retrenchment, reallocation, curriculum reform) may seem chaotic to faculty but are not confused, short-term measures that will disappear as the economy recovers. Union tactics or other responses that are merely reactive and depend on…