Talk of UI faculty union gaining steam

Concerns over last week's hiring of a former IBM executive as the next University of Iowa president have rekindled decades-old discussions among faculty about forming a union.

Sheldon Kurtz, a law professor who came to UI in 1973, said he has been actively suggesting to colleagues that it's time to explore whether their interests would be better served through collective bargaining.

The last time there was a concentrated effort to unionize the UI faculty was nearly 40 years ago, after the University of Northern Iowa voted to affiliate with the national American Association of University Professors in 1976, Kurtz said. At the time, there were concerns, especially among the faculty in law and medicine, about whether collective bargaining would complicate doctor-patient and attorney-client confidentiality.

"As a professional, the notion of unionization is not something I typically think would be for me," Kurtz said. "But there are faculty unions that work well."

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Kurtz stressed that he is not saying UI faculty definitely should unionize, but he sees nothing wrong with a serious discussion about the pros and cons. The discussion, he said, should be part of any follow-up to the "no confidence" votes against the regents that were taken Tuesday in UI's Faculty Senate and student government groups.

"I may well conclude it's a bad idea," Kurtz said. "But if we're open about our interest in exploring the question, I have no doubt there would be plenty of unions ready to talk to us."

When asked the regents' view on talk of unionization, spokesman Josh Lehman said the board had no comment.

Exploring their options

Joe Gorton, president of the union representing UNI's roughly 550 faculty members, said he has received a trickle of emails from UI faculty members since the regents announced Bruce Harreld as UI's next president.

The total number of tenured, tenure-track and non-tenure track faculty at UI is about 3,000.

Given that the regents chose Harreld over two university provosts and a college president, Gorton strongly agreed with the UI Faculty Senate's statement that the search amounted to a breakdown of the tradition of shared governance among the faculty, administration and regents.

"The Board of Regents has unintentionally created a strong opportunity and a profound need for a faculty union at the University of Iowa," said Gorton, who heads UNI's United Faculty/AAUP. "The question is whether the faculty will act decisively and intelligently to take advantage of this moment. Failure to do so will place at risk their academic freedom, tenure and shared governance."

"At UI, the shared governance groups include the governments for the undergraduate, graduate and professional students; the Staff Council; and the Faculty Senate. For tasks that affect the whole university -- like the vetting of UI presidential candidates -- the groups informally share responsibility with the administration and regents, but ultimate hiring authority rests with the regents."

Because of the backlash to the presidential selection, it's not surprising some faculty members are looking into how faculty unions function at other universities, said Lois Cox, a UI professor of law and a member of UI’s AAUP chapter.

“When employees feel their interests are being disregarded in the workplace, organizing (a union) is one of the options that comes to mind,” Cox said.

Cox said discussions about unionization already have taken place, both at UI and nationally, concerning the treatment of and benefits for non-tenure track and contingent faculty. But since Harreld’s hiring, she has heard the topic being brought up more often among tenured and tenure-track faculty as well.

Breakdown of shared governance

National AAUP leaders point out that, over the past half-century, successful unionization campaigns among faculty usually come as a result of a profound breakdown in the shared governance system.

"It was very often the case that (unionization campaigns came after) the faculty had been shut out of the type of decision making that used to involve the faculty before," said Hans-Joerg Tiede, a faculty member at Illinois Wesleyan University and a member of the AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

Such drives may start with disruption in the shared governance system, but success depends on coordination with the councils and senates who represent all the constituencies on campus.

“(Faculty unions) should never replace shared governance,” Tiede said. “(They) should complement shared governance and ensure that the kind of things we often view as informal agreements in shared governance actually get put into a contract.”

That dual role for faculty leaders – as members of a collective bargaining unit and as participants in a shared governance system – has been at work for the past 45 years at Rutgers University in New Jersey, a fellow Big Ten institution.

“It’s really worked well in a research university setting,” said Patrick Nowlan, the executive director of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents more than 6,600 employees on the university’s three campuses. “With collective bargaining, we are offered a different venue in which to sit down with management. On governance matters, we still work through the faculty councils.”

At UNI, union and other faculty leaders have a similar division of labor based on the mandatory bargaining topics specified in the Iowa Code. The UNI Faculty Senate focuses on the curriculum and stays out of the contract issues, Gorton said, and the union focuses on the contract and stays away from curriculum.

"United Faculty has succeeded in protecting what is important to our faculty while also building a mutually respectful relationship with the (Board of Regents)," Gorton said.

A long, long-term strategy

Clarifying the division of labor between a faculty union and a Faculty Senate is just one of many issues that would need to be addressed before any organizing campaign could even get to stage one at UI, said Nate Willems, a Cedar Rapids-based labor lawyer who works with UNI’s United Faculty.

“You don’t know what the level of interest is," Willems said. "You don’t what the regents’ attitude is. You don’t know what the bargaining unit description would look like. You don’t know whether the faculty and regents would agree as to who should be included or excluded from the bargaining unit."

UNI basically has a “wall-to-wall bargaining unit that excludes people from department heads and up,” Willems said. But given the greater variety of faculty positions among at UI, he said, the union and university might decide it makes more sense to divide into multiple bargaining units.

At Rutgers, in contrast, the union’s membership has expanded several times over the past 45 years. Graduate employees were added in 1972, part-time lecturers in 1988 and post-doctoral associations in 2011. There are multiple bargaining units, each with their own contracts, that are all represented by Rutgers AAUP-AFT.

If organizers were to come to an agreement with UI and regents on the definition of a bargaining unit, they then would face the challenging task of holding an election and persuading a majority of the faculty that they stand to benefit from collective bargaining.

The regents would have to abide by the results of the election.

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at 319-887-5435 or jcharisc@press-citizen.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jeffcharis.

Scope of negotiations

The list of collective bargaining topics specified in Iowa Code include "wages, hours, vacations, insurance, holidays, leaves of absence, shift differentials, overtime compensation, supplemental pay, seniority, transfer procedures, job classifications, health and safety matters, evaluation procedures, procedures for staff reduction, in-service training and other matters mutually agreed upon. Negotiations shall also include terms authorizing dues checkoff for members of the employee organization and grievance procedures for resolving any questions arising under the agreement."

List of research universities with faculty unions

Rutgers University

Temple University

SUNY Universities

California State University System

University of Florida

Wayne State University

University of Cincinnati

University of Connecticut

University of Vermont

University of New Hampshire

University of Delaware

University of Rhode Island

Florida State University

University of Alaska

Source: American Association of University Professors

Praise amid the criticism

While many University of Iowa faculty, staff and student leaders continue to express their disappointment with the process that led to the hiring of Bruce Harreld as UI president, other higher education officials and campus leaders have praised the Iowa Board of Regent's choice of a non-traditional candidate.

"Higher education is facing many challenges, and institutions wedded to the status quo will have a bleak future," Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said Tuesday."Governance for a new era requires boards to be laser-focused on examining candidates from inside and outside academic circles."

Neal praised the regents for being willing even to consider the candidacy of a business executive whose managerial experience lies in the corporate, rather than academic, world. She put Harreld in the same company as presidents Mitch Daniels at Purdue University and David Boren at the University of Oklahoma.

"Honestly, the search was well done," said UI interim president Jean Robillard, who chaired the 21-member committee that recommended Harreld as one of four finalists to replace recently retired UI President Sally Mason.

“I’ve already started to work with Bruce Harreld, and I’m very impressed by him,” Robillard said after Wednesday’s Iowa Board of Regents meeting in Cedar Falls. “When you meet this person, you are excited by his view of what he wants to do. He’s not coming to cut programs. He’s coming to understand what the programs need and then help to find the resources to make them better."

— Jeff Charis-Carlson

Mixed lessons from history

Although there hasn't been a union vote among the UI faculty, the history of similar union drives at UI has been mixed.

After an initial failed election, UI’s graduate teaching and research assistants held a successful Campaign to Organize Graduate Students (COGS) in 1995 when they voted to affiliate with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.

In 2005, a unionization drive among UI’s professional and scientific staff ended with a lopsided “no” vote. Organizers at the time said they couldn’t persuade staff members across the campus that they had enough common interests to benefit from collective bargaining by the Service Employees International Union on their behalf.

“There also was a lot of misinformation,” UI staff member Gerene Denning said Thursday. “We could persuade people one at a time, but (that’s not good enough) when you have to get a majority of people.”

— Jeff Charis-Carlson