Montana State profs will vote on a union this Spring

Professors and adjunct instructors at Montana State University appear to be headed for a vote this spring on the controversial question of whether to form a faculty union.

Montana University System and MEA-MFT union bargainers said they’ve reached a compromise on who gets to vote.

The thorniest question n whether adjunct faculty do or don’t get to vote n would be resolved by holding two separate elections, one for adjunct faculty and one for tenured and tenure-track faculty. They would vote on forming separate bargaining units. Both groups, neither or either group could decide to join the union.

Wes Lynch, psychology professor and chair of the Faculty Senate, sent an e-mail message to faculty Friday announcing that a compromise had apparently been reached and inviting the faculty to an informational forum Wednesday.

Melissa Case, an MEA-MFT organizer, and Kevin McRae, labor relations director for the University System, confirmed Friday that a compromise has been reached in concept, though not yet signed, that would allow elections sometime before the semester ends in May.

“We believe we’ve reached an agreement that would allow faculty to vote in the spring,” Case said.

“The good news is this thing will not be delayed,” McRae said. “We both have an interest in respecting employees’ right to express their desire (on a union). Neither has an interest in a protracted administrative proceeding.”

Without the compromise, the question of who gets to vote was heading to a Board of Personnel Appeals hearing officer in April, whose decision could then be appealed by either side to the full board, District Court and the state Supreme Court, McRae said.

Lynch said there are about 416 tenured and tenure-track faculty members who would be eligible to vote, and about 229 adjuncts. Adjuncts are instructors who don’t have the job security of tenure and theoretically work part-time on temporary contracts. But some adjuncts have been teaching at MSU for decades.

In both groups, only those who teach half time or more would be eligible.

MSU President Geoff Gamble said his main concern is that the bargaining units are established appropriately, so that the campus wouldn’t be torn by a disruptive decertification vote.

“When it’s all said and done, it’s a faculty issue,” he said.

The Faculty Senate forum will be held from 4:10 to 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Strand Union Building, room 235.

“The more people are talking, the more information, the better,” Lynch said.

The forum is intended as an opportunity for people to ask questions and share information n not to debate the pros and cons of a union, Lynch said. The Faculty Senate is officially neutral and plans to have a neutral moderator.

Both the employer and union sides are expected to have experts at the forum to answer questions. Lynch said the last time the Faculty Senate brought in the two sides, it became more of a debate, which ended with a shouting match in the hallway.

Lynch said his understanding is that the compromise agreement would exclude from voting about 40 department heads; 45 research faculty; and those Ag Experiment Station and Extension Service members who work off campus.

Asked to predict which side would win, Lynch laughed. He said someone just told him that enough people had signed union cards that both groups would vote in the union. But older faculty have told him the union doesn’t stand a chance, because hard science, engineering and Extension faculty would vote it down.

“I’m pretty agnostic,” Lynch said and chuckled. “I’m close enough to retirement.”

MSU is the only state campus whose faculty isn’t represented by a union. The last faculty union vote in 1989 ended with the union being rejected 2-to-1.