Universities and collective bargaining

The author disagrees with Cameron's suggestion that democratization and decentralization were a mistake. As chief lobbyist of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, he argues for collective bargaining. He counters Cameron's support of the continuation of mandatory retirement with reference to the U.S. experience and points to the Supreme Court's defence of tenure.     

Predicting faculty attitude toward collective bargaining

This exploratory study isolated factors useful for predicting faculty attitude toward collective bargaining (CB) in higher education. Research sought, first, to measure the strength of bivariate relationships between a CB attitude measure and other attitudinal and demographic variables and to investigate the nature of multivariate relationships between the former criterion and the latter predictors. Second, the underlying structure of the most useful predictor was examined. Results showed that measures of faculty perceptions of potential bargaining issues — including monetary issues, working conditions, participation in institutional decision-making and promotion and tenure policies — as well as individual faculty compensation were the most useful predictors of CB attitudes. Conclusions related these findings to alternatives for higher education faculty and administrators as well as for potential faculty organizers and bargaining agents.     

Why collective bargaining in higher education

Fordham University faculty members rejected collective bargaining in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) supervised election in the spring of 1975. The present study was conducted prior to the election. Relationships between faculty members' attitudes toward collective action and their perceptions of the quality of the organizational characteristics of the University were examined.The study was based on modern organization theory which contends that the needs of organizational participants must be satisfied and integrated with organizational goals to maximize output and to minimize the potential for dysfunctional behavior of the participants.The findings supported theory. Faculty members were less supportive of collective action when they perceived administrator-faculty and intrafaculty relationships, motivation processes, and communication processes to be at levels conducive to meeting their needs.     

A logical analysis of faculty collective bargaining

This paper proposes a model for the verbal theory of collective bargaining. Four variables are used: trust, salary, inclination for collective bargaining, and general professional market. Postulates from the model and strategies for estimating its parameters are also discussed.     

Conditions influencing faculty voting in collective bargaining elections

This research examines the factors that influenced voting behavior in two faculty union defeats at New York University. Faculty members' and librarians' demographic and professional characteristics referred to in previous research on collective bargaining were not good predictors of how they voted in these elections. However, their satisfaction with conditions at NYU, especially satisfaction with participation in governance, was a strong predictor of how they voted. Furthermore, faculty characteristics were found to influence their satisfaction with conditions. This paper also discusses the importance of the swing votes cast in a run-off election by the members of a previously defeated third party and the influence on the election outcomes of an independent group of faculty members opposed to unionization.     

The role of professionalization in a collective bargaining election

This study examined a university's faculty voting in a collective bargaining election. Not only were the votes for and against bargaining collected, but also relevant demographic data were includedon each ballot. These data permit analysis of which specific faculty members at a comprehensive university tend to favor or oppose faculty bargaining. The variable of professionalization is identified as being important to the faculty members' decision. The findings have ramifications for faculties, governing boards, and governmental labor-relations agencies in considering how bargaining units should be composed and imposed.     

How and why the CAUT became involved in collective bargaining

Despite a persistent belief to the contrary, most Canadian universities prior to the 1960s did not operate collegially. They were run autocratically. Collective bargaining arose as a means of ensuring true collegiality through negotiations between equals, legally entrenching due process and academic freedom, and providing a clearer and stronger mechanism for dealing with salaries and benefits. This was a revolution from below in the governance of universities. Although the sixties are widely regarded as the age of student revolt, in Canada it was the faculty, not the students, who secured a dramatic change in the power structure of the university through collective bargaining.     

Provision for community college faculty development in collective bargaining agreements

While the need for community college faculty development has evolved into a top priority issue over the last decade, collective bargaining has become a significant influence on the programs and policies of two-year campuses in many states. The following study examines the trends of collective negotiations as they affect inservice education, through an examination of collective bargaining agreements. The findings indicate that few colleges declare the purpose of faculty development to be increased teaching effectiveness or link participation in professional growth activities with reward for that participation. Few colleges include faculty on inservice planning bodies. However, facilitating policies for staff development exist in significant numbers of agreements, providing for inservice days, leaves of absence, sabbaticals, tuition reimbursement for formal study, and released time for innovative program development. In all, the trend is presently one of negotiation of provisions in a piecemeal fashion rather than one with the goal of establishing comprehensive professional improvement programs.     

A collective bargaining election: Issues and faculty voting behavior

Following the election of a faculty collective bargaining agent at the 14 Pennsylvania state colleges, the authors administered a survey questionnaire to a 50% sample of the bargaining unit. The objectives of the research were to identify relationships between faculty choice of a bargaining agent and several collective bargaining issues: attitudes about the contending associations, the extent to which internal versus external governance matters influenced voting behavior, attitudes about the scope of negotiations, attitudes about the defined bargaining unit, attitudes about faculty strikes, and demographic faculty characteristics. The authors provide primarily a narrative of the research findings and end with a succinct general summary of their findings. A brief discussion is also presented on the potential impact on elections of voters who fail to vote their conscience.     

Academic penetration in faculty collective bargaining contracts in higher education

The purpose of this research was to analyze faculty collective bargaining contracts at 124 institutions of higher education that had a 10-year history of collective bargaining from 1975 to 1985 to determine if contracts negotiated in 1975 significantly differed from those negotiated in 1985 with regard to 18 selected academic items. Each academic item in both the 1975 and 1985 contracts was coded according to a scaling code with rankings showing the direction of faculty control. The findings revealed that the 1985 contracts contained both an increased number of academic items and an increased level of faculty control over most of those academic items compared with the 1975 contracts.     

Faculty collective bargaining in Canada: Background,development and impact

Conclusion The Kemerer-Baldridge study acknowledges that in the U.S. faculty unions have negotiated procedural protection in tenure and promotions, less arbitrariness in administrative decisions, more job security, and greater economic security in general. The authors also point out that these negotiated advantages accrue to non-unit faculty as well. In my view those conclusions apply with equal force in Canada.As noted in the introduction to this section, we still lack sufficient data to do more than generalize from impressionistic accounts. Nevertheless I feel safe in saying that, in a very short period of time, collective bargaining has enhanced true professionalism and real collegiality on Canadian campuses by moving Canadian academics from their knees (suitable no doubt for supplication) to their feet; by giving them legally enforceable job security without which the notion of academic freedom had too hollow a ring; by giving them a real and not a mythical voice in university governance; and by doing all of this and more without creating excessive bureaucracies, industrial models, unconscionable power blocks, or strangulation by legalistic formality. In the course of doing so, Canadian faculty engaged in collective bargaining have developed innovative approaches in a number of key areas, approaches which may yet have significant impact in both public and private sector bargaining. Certainly, faculty collective bargaining has gone a long way in developing a model for professional unionism in Canada.     

Community colleges with collective bargaining agreements: Are they different?

The absence of data-based research on the collective bargaining movement is surprising given the potential significance of this issue to the academic community. The purpose of this study is to show that community colleges can be differentiated on the basis of the particular collective bargaining representative selected and, furthermore, that those affiliated with one bargaining representative are different from community colleges which are not affiliated with any bargaining representative. These institutional differences are presented and their implications for both the collective bargaining and community college movements are discussed.     

Pluralist models of public sector collective bargaining: Proposals for public education

Current methods of public sector collective bargaining are modeled after private sector bilateral negotiations. Often they do not adequately reflect the pluralistic nature of the many publics affected by the results of such negotiations. In this study the authors examine the present methods of collective bargaining particularly as they relate to the public sector. The argument is made that in the public sector, particularly where public education is concerned, bilateral negotiations are not adequate nor desirable. They violate our democratic, pluralistic traditions. The legal and political issues involved in public bargaining are examined, as are current and suggested third party roles in the process. Four multilateral models for pluralist bargaining are then developed and discussed. The article concludes with a call for formalized public participation in public education collective bargaining.     

The growth and impact of teachers' unions in states without collective bargaining legislation

This paper examines teachers' union activity in large school districts in the eleven states without collective bargaining legislation. A supply and demand model of municipal labor markets was used to specify reduced form wage, employment, and expenditure equations. These equations were then estimated using ordinary least squares regression analysis to determine the impact of teachers' collective bargaining. The presence of a collective bargaining agreement had a statistically significant effect on wages and district expenditures. Average teachers' sa;ary in districts with collective bargaining agreement was 9.5% higher than average salary in districts without collective bargaining agreements. Similarly, average school district expenditure was 15.6% higher in districts with collective bargaining agreements.     

Organizational climate and faculty attitudes toward collective bargaining: A university in a major labor dispute

The present study attempts to broaden Neumann's (1979) original study, which included only universities with favorable labor relations, and to assess the role of organizational climate in predicting and explaining faculty attitudes toward collective bargaining at a college facing severe labor problems. The major findings of this study are the following. First, the perceived power structure is the dominant predictor of attitudes toward unionization at the university in a labor dispute. The magnitude of relationships between perceived power and collective bargaining attitudes is noticeably stronger at the university with unfavorable labor relations than at universities with favorable labor relations. Second, inequity is related to some aspects of collective bargaining and is not related to others. Third, perceived goals do not effect faculty attitudes toward unionization. The implications of these findings are discussed and elaborated.     

Determinants of faculty attitudes toward collective bargaining in university graduate departments: An organizational climate approach

This study examines the relationship between some facets of organizational climate in university departments and faculty attitudes toward various aspects of faculty unionization. The dimensions of organizational climate explored are: the perceived power structure, assessment of rewards, and perceived organizational goals. The major findings of this study are: (a) The perceived power structure is an important determinant of attitudes toward an egalitarian system, especially in the social sciences. Perceived individual power is negatively related to egalitarian attitude in the physical sciences whereas perceived faculty group power is negatively related to favorable attitudes toward collective bargaining in the social sciences. (b) Perceived emphasis on consulting activities is positively related to attitudes toward seniority-based aspects of collective bargaining in the physical sciences while perceived emphasis on personal factors is positively related to all aspects of attitude toward collective bargaining in the social sciences. (c) Inequity is positively related to attitudes toward unionization both in the physical and social sciences. The policy implications of these findings to faculty and university administration are discussed.