Faculty, Including Adjuncts, at Univ. of Kansas Looking to Unionize

by Abdullah Al-Awhad

Low salaries, lack of communication between the administration and faculty, and tensions about the Kansas Board of Regents’ regulations of tenured faculty are the reasons the United Academics of the University of Kansas, a prospective union, cited for its emergence.

Under the umbrella of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), UAKU aims to represent over 1,500 full-time and part-time tenured and non-tenured-track faculty.

Berl Oakley, a professor of molecular biology at the University and union member, said UAKU has made “a lot of progress” with card signing, a required step for unionization, but did not provide the number of signatures. Oakley has taught at the University for 10 years.

The frustration with the administration is not new, but professors decided to move forward when the AFT and AAUP joined to support university faculty in unionization, Oakley said.

“We can’t do that in addition to our regular jobs: teaching and doing research,” Oakley said. “It was just too hard to do it individually.”

Forming a union will give University professors bargaining power with the administration that improves educational outcomes for students, Oakley said.

“The administration would actually be able to do a much better job if it listened to its faculty, and this [UAKU] would provide a mechanism by which they would, more or less, have to listen to the faculty,” Oakley said.

There are three college campuses that have unions in Kansas – Johnson County Community College, Fort Hays State University and Pittsburg State University.

Jonathan Hagel, an assistant teaching professor of history at the University and union member, said a concern he and other professors have is that the University potentially increases the number of adjunct faculty. Hagel has taught at the university for 10 years.

Adjunct faculty tend to teach more courses at multiple universities, which puts them under more pressure, Hagel said.

“Take one person and divide their attention by six ways,” Hagel said. “Add commutes to different places, and the amount of time that those people can spend doing their job of being the best teacher they can be is going to be severely limited.”

Hagel said KU has been doing a great job at minimizing adjunct labor, but pressures from the state and higher enrollment demand may push the university toward increasing adjunct labor.

“We have a lot of concern that the best things about KU are maybe a bit in jeopardy,” Hagel said.

Identifying the major reasons behind the emergence of UAKU, Stephanie Meehan, clinical associate professor and UAKU member, and Oakley said that the administration has not been listening to faculty enough.

What’s next for UAKU? The unionization processes 

*Kansan reporters compiled the following from an interview with an anonymous expert, viewed information on UAKU’s website and reviewed the Employer-Employee Relations Act.

1. A majority of faculty and academic staff have already signed a statement of purpose to show that UAKU has sufficient support to form a union.
   
2. UAKU is currently collecting union authorization cards from faculty and staff. UAKU will need to collect cards from 30% of the bargaining unit – faculty members who are eligible to join UAKU – to meet the legal threshold in Kansas.
   
3. Before the election, UAKU will need to file a “unit determination request” to the Kansas Public Employee Relations Board. 
   
4. There will be an election. If a simple majority (50% + 1) of University faculty members vote to form a union, the University will be legally obligated to enter a negotiation about salaries and benefits with UAKU.

Unit determination is a contentious process between unions and employers, said an expert on the condition of anonymity. Employers tend to limit the pool of eligible members. 

“It’s pretty common for administrations to fight it and not necessarily in a coherent way,” the expert said. “It’s whatever gives them advantage in the situation.” 

UAKU considers anybody who is not a supervisor – those who are below the level of a chair – to be a part of the bargaining unit. However, UAKU said it would include chairs who do not hold managerial or supervisory roles. The University will get the chance to weigh in on this proposal.

If UAKU and the University fail to reach an agreement, the bargaining unit will be determined by the Public Employee Relations Board.

The three commonly identified reasons for faculty outrage: Low salaries, job insecurity during COVID-19 and tenured professors leaving for better jobs 

Data from KU Analytics, Institutional Research and Effectiveness show that faculty salaries at the University are among the lowest in the American Association of Universities, an organization of American research universities established in 1900 to maintain a strong system of academic research and education.