Adjunct faculty members at Washington University will begin voting next week on whether to join a union, with the ballots to be counted after the first of the year.
According to an agreement between the university and the Service Employees International Union, Washington U. will not take a position on how the about 400 eligible faculty members should vote. It will “communicate facts to eligible faculty about subjects such as collective bargaining and the election process but will be objective and informative in any such communications.”
In return, the union agreed “not to seek or encourage student, political or other activism on campus or in the media regarding this campaign” and to work with the university “to limit any disruptions on campus (including, but not limited to, pickets, sit-ins, walk-outs) related to the campaign.”
Both parties said they would “work cooperatively to ensure the election does not interfere with classroom instruction or disrupt faculty time with students.” Both the union and the university said they would “refrain from any negative communications about the other party,” and the union would “speak positively about Washington University’s participation in the campaign process.”
The union had worked to represent the part-time faculty members, to address complaints about pay, working conditions and uncertain schedules. The election follows submission of a petition in October to the National Labor Relations Board signed by a sufficient number of eligible instructors.
The Washington U. faculty members who are eligible to vote in the election include part-time, non-tenure track and non-research track faculty members who teach at least one course for credit in an undergraduate program that leads to a degree from the schools of Arts and Sciences, Design and Visual Arts or Engineering and Applied Sciences. The course in question had to be taught in 2014.
Distribution of ballots is scheduled to begin Dec. 12, with voting allowed through Jan. 2. Ballots would be counted on Jan. 5, according to the SEIU. Balloting will be done by mail, with the ballots asking one question: “Do you wish to be represented for purposes of collective bargaining by Service Employees International Union, Local 1?”
In an FAQ about the election posted on its website, the university says that if a majority of those who vote on the proposal say yes, then all faculty members who were eligible to vote will be represented by the union, regardless of how many votes are cast.
Additionally, the university said that if unionization is approved, it would be legally prohibited from working directly with adjuncts “on certain important aspects of your employment.”
In the joint statement, the university said that with respect to dues, it “will only communicate that unions seek to collect dues from their members and those it represents but will not state what those amounts are, how often they might be collected or how much they might increase over time, or what they would be used for.”
Ballots for the election will be sent to the home addresses of those who are eligible to vote. The university said that it had provided the addresses to the NLRB, as required by law, and the NLRB would then share them with the union.
The push to unionize part-time faculty at Washington U. is part of a nationwide effort by the SEIU called Adjunct Action. Faculty members at Tufts University in Boston and some smaller institutions in Vermont have voted in recent months to join the union, citing the need for higher pay and more certainty in their work schedules. Other schools have also seen adjunct faculty votes to join the union.
At Webster University, where the SEIU is also active, the administration has taken a different approach than Washington U., with Provost Julian Z. Schuster saying in a letter that the school is “firmly opposed to unionization of our adjunct faculty.
“We see no additional benefit that a union can bring to this important constituency and frankly view unionization as a detriment to our current environment of openness, inclusion, and active participation that we now have with our adjunct faculty.”
Nationwide, the number of adjunct faculty members has risen in recent years as the number of tenured professors has dipped. The American Association of University Professors has called the result a “multi-tier academic labor structure” and “an inequity that cannot be allowed to stand.”
At Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis, faculty members formed a unit of the National Education Association, but the school’s board of regents imposed a contract on professors after declaring that negotiations had reached an impasse.
Unionization efforts are ongoing at other schools in the area as well.
A study at the University of Southern California concluded that the increased use of adjuncts on the nation’s campuses has had an overall negative effect on students, including fewer interactions with faculty, reduced graduation rates, lower grade point averages and decreased transfers from two-year to four-year institutions.
(Editor’s note: Dale Singer has taught journalism courses as an adjunct instructor in the University College at Washington U.)
