TIM JOHNSON

Adjunct faculty at St. Michael's College have petitioned for a union election.

Their request to the National Labor Relations Board follows similar petitions by adjunct faculty at two other local schools, Burlington and Champlain Colleges. In all three cases, the union on the ballot would be the Service Employees International Union.

Among the petitioners at St. Michael's is Anne Tewksbury-Frye, who teaches one graduate education course and who has taught at the college for 14 years. She said she regards union representation as a safety net, as a vehicle for "uplifting the profession," and as a means of improving communication.

Adjunct faculty, also called contingent faculty, typically teach part time on short-term individual contracts, off the tenure track.

The regular faculty at St. Michael's College does not have union representation. The only unionized employees on campus are custodians, who joined the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in 2012.

About 20 percent of the courses at St. Michael's are taught by adjuncts, according to Becky Watson, college spokeswoman.

The St. Michael's petition was filed Friday at the regional office of the labor board, according to an SEIU spokeswoman. Petitions for the other two colleges were filed the previous Friday. No elections have yet been scheduled.

In each case, letters urging a neutral process during the run-up to an election have gone out to the institutional presidents. In St. Michael's case, President John J. Neuhauser received letters supporting adjuncts' right to organize from Benjamin Johnson, president of AFT-Vermont; and from Rep. Susan Hatch, D-Topsham, and Rep John Moran, D-Wardsboro, co-chairs of the legislative Working Vermonters Caucus.