Inside Higher Ed: Unusual union battle
Battles over unions for private college faculty members have been relatively rare for more than 25 years. The Supreme Court’s 1980 decision rejecting collective bargaining for professors at Yeshiva University — finding that they were managerial employees — largely shut down organizing drives. Many private institutions with unions had them decertified in the wake of the Yeshiva ruling. (Public colleges are not covered by federal labor laws, so faculty members’ ability to unionize there depends on various state statutes.)
The action, by Quinnipiac University, was little noticed. But this weekend, the American Federation of Teachers prepared at its national meeting to censure the Connecticut institution and to begin a campaign to win back collective bargaining rights. AFT officials say that Quinnipiac has already taken advantage of its union-free status to strip librarians of certain rights, including the right to seek tenure. “This is a matter of principle and democracy,” said Rob Callahan, a national organizer for the AFT.
Some private institutions, however, never did so — and collective bargaining has continued. That’s because while the Supreme Court said that private colleges faculty members didn’t have a right to unionize, it didn’t ban the practice. This year, one of those institutions sought and won a ruling to decertify its union.
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