EMULOC Wins Big: MFT Press Release
ISSUING A DECISION in favor of the Eastern Michigan University Lecturers Organizing Congress (EMULOC), the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) has granted the right of union representation to full-time lecturers at Eastern Michigan University. “Our decision herein,” the Commission concludes, “will give lecturers who have been employed for many years, some
close to 20 years, and who have a continuing interest in their employment relationship, the benefits of collective bargaining.” Commission members Harry W. Bishop and C. Barry Ott signed
the decision.
The result of this decision is that an election will be conducted among the full-time lecturers at the University. A vote in favor will require the EMU administration to recognize the union and
begin negotiations for a binding contract.
“We’re ecstatic,” said Julie Frentrup, a lecturer in Chemistry who has taught at EMU for fifteen years. “The decision says what every lecturer knows: that we are not casual employees, that we
teach here year after year, that we have a commitment to the university, and that we deserve the right to representation.” Frentrup is a member of the union’s Organizing Committee who testified in the MERC hearing.
EMU employs 100 full-time and 300 part-time lecturers. Lecturers are faculty members who are appointed to teach undergraduate courses on a semester-by-semester basis. They work without job
security for a fraction of the salary and none of the rights and protections of tenure-track faculty. At EMU, and at colleges and universities nationwide, lecturers have comprised an
increasingly large percentage of the higher education instructional workforce, teaching half or more of the undergraduate classes on some campuses. A previous MERC ruling had denied EMULOC’s
petition for a union election for both full- and part-time lecturers.
EMULOC had filed a petition for a union election in April 1998, but the university administration had opposed the petition, claiming that lecturers are casual employees who should not have
collective bargaining rights. The MERC decision rejects the administration’s argument, finding that full-time lecturers, “certainly have more than a casual or temporary interest in their wages, hours, and working conditions, in view of their full-time employment with, and dependence upon, the University.” The decision also concludes that, “lecturers receiving the equivalent of a full-time employment have a reasonable expectation of continued employment from year to year” and that, “there should not be a great degree of fluctuation in the unit from year to year,” dismissing the Administration’s contention that a union of lecturers would be too “unstable” to negotiate with.
“The record establishes that there are lecturers who have taught full-time for more than 10 years, and others who have taught either full or part-time for close to 20 years,” the MERC decision states.
“Frankly, the Administration’s arguments were insulting,” commented Matt Johnson, a lecturer in English and a member of the EMULOC Organizing Committee. ‘They basically described us as disposable labor without any connection to the University. Talk to any lecturer, or any student for that matter, and you’ll find that lecturers are dedicated, committed teachers who think that education is the most important thing in the world. Why else would we work for so little?”
In its post-hearing brief, the Administration had argued that lecturers, “show up for work, teach classes, and go home, and share no other commonalties,” that lecturers, “have no service obligation
to EMU’s larger community, which prevents [them] from forming a connection to each other or to EMU as a whole” and that lecturers, “simply do not have the same types of common interests which are the hallmarks of bargaining units.”
EMULOC is affiliated with the Michigan Federation of Teachers and School Related Personnel (MFT&SRP), the state federation of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO.
