Teachers unions have had a "muscular" presence in some states, but in others, especially in the South and Southwest, the unions have held little power in recent decades, and the growing dominance of conservative Republicans in state legislatures and statehouses was creating a hostile environment with right-to-work (RTW) laws. The…

This article focuses on the relation between new public management (NPM) reforms and changing patterns of industrial relations (IRs) and social dialogue in the Italian education system. Drawing on data from the research project 'Social dialogue and industrial relations in education: The challenges of multi-level governance and privatisation in…

On October 16, 2017, over 12,000 faculty, librarians, and counsellors in 24 independent postsecondary colleges in Ontario, Canada went on strike for the fourth time since they organized in 1971 as members of the Civil Service Association of Ontario and won their first collective agreement the next year. Begun as an apolitical, self-consciously…

This paper explores trade union collective voice as a mechanism for worker participation in training decision making. New Zealand is an example of a liberal market economy (LME) with relatively weak regulatory pressure on employers to engage in training. Consequently, drivers such as trade union collective voice could fill an important role in…

The 50-State Comparison on teacher employment contract policies provides a national comparison of teacher employment contract policies in all states. All of the information was gathered from and focused on state statutes and regulations. State case law was also utilized for metrics related to collective bargaining. Data collection focused…

This article examines how teacher collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), teacher salaries, and class sizes changed during the Great Recession. Using a district-level data set of California teacher CBAs that includes measures of subarea contract strength and salaries from 2005-2006 and 2011-2012 tied to district-level longitudinal data, we…

Purpose: The purpose of this Delphi study was to identify the recommendations of a Delphi panel of expert practitioners regarding the competencies and practices for HR leaders to be effective in K-12 public education in California. The study also determined the degree of importance and feasibility of the recommendations. Methodology: The Delphi…

This research project investigates librarians' attitudes toward unions and collective bargaining through data collected from a nationwide survey of 359 academic librarians in the United States. We found that academic librarians have a generally positive view of unions and collective bargaining agreements, a notable result in a national political…

The nation's oldest labor laws give employees the fundamental rights to organize and join a union. An increasing number of graduate student workers across the country are seeking to exercise these rights at the private universities where they work while they pursue their education. During the 2011-2012 school year, 12.1 percent of all graduate…

The tables have turned on Michigan's public school boards and other school officials. As a result of changes to the state's labor law in 2023, school districts face the risk of losing some authority to determine who should be teaching in their classrooms. Teachers unions are empowered once again to demand districts treat teachers as if they are…

For both proponents and critics alike, among the most salient features of charter schooling today is their freedom from collective bargaining agreements that shape staffing and work rules and limit school administrators' discretion. This is changing in some states where a small but growing number of charter schools are unionized. How collective…

This study takes college teaching/educational quality seriously by taking teachers' working conditions seriously. Data consist of contractual provisions about adjunct faculty members' access to instructional resources and professional development in 254 collective bargaining agreements. The research analyzes the negotiated balance in…

In this brief, we set out to understand how unionization may or may not shape practices central to charter schools' ability to serve students. The study, an exploratory one, includes 29 interviews across eight schools that unionized four to six years ago. Our results point to areas of concern, optimism, and future research. We found: (1)…

The COVID-19 pandemic created enormous challenges for public education. We assess the role of political factors and public health in state and local education decisions, especially the continuation of learning during COVID-19. Using an original dataset of state education policies since the start of the pandemic, we find that governors took the…

Because charter school principals are granted more autonomy and discretion than principals of traditional public schools, it is imperative to search for the attributes of principals that may improve charter school performance. This study examines the relationship between principals' collective bargaining and charter school effectiveness. Using…