Non-tenure-track faculty vote to unionize

Faculty members off the tenure track at the University of Michigan voted in April to create a union to represent 1,300 full- and part-time teaching staff.

The Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO), an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), drew more than 80 percent of the vote, which included about half the eligible faculty members at U-M’s Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses. The new union includes full- and part-time lecturers, adjunct faculty members and visiting faculty members.
The AFT represents 45,000 non-tenure-track faculty members in the United States and also is the bargaining agent for graduate teaching assistants at Michigan.

Job security was the top priority for those who voted for the union. Some said they work for many years on series of yearly contracts, never knowing if they’ll be rehired. Salaries were also a factor. Some part-time faculty members make as little as $2,400 per course.

The U-M administration did not try to influence the vote. Julie Peterson, associate vice president for communications, said, “This was a democratic process, and we’re comfortable with the outcome. We’ll be making preparations to begin bargaining.”

Jeffery Frumkin, assistant provost for academic and staff human resources, said both the University and LEO were preparing to begin bargaining over a new contract in late summer or early fall.

Lecturers and adjunct faculty still should be comfortable asking their department chairs and unit directors for information about their employment, Frumkin said. “But the existence of a collective bargaining relationship means there will no longer be individual negotiations over the terms of employment,” he said.

Kirsten Herold, an English Department lecturer and chair for LEO in Ann Arbor, said that the lecturers “are not opposed to people making more money than other people. We know the market is different for different teachers, but there had been no university-wide rules or transparency in salary, job security or benefits.”