To Be or Not To Be (in a Unified Union Local)

Ideally, union membership will benefit all members equally. It’s a simple system, in theory: faculty unionize, pay dues, and bargain collectively. Everyone benefits. In practice, however, particularly as the numbers of part-time faculty continue to rise, the mechanics of union representation have become more complicated, even politicized. Full-time faculty, in many instances, compete with part-time faculty for office space, courses, benefits, research funding and pay. Thanks to shrinking higher ed. funding, and the rise of for profit universities, this competition between full-time and part-time faculty has intensified. Given this fact, can full-time and part-time faculty be represented equally well by […]