University of Chicago's Non-Tenure Faculty Are Trying To Unionize

By Kate Shepherd in News on Oct 30, 2015 9:45PM



via Jazmin Medrano

Part-time and non-tenure track faculty at the University of Chicago have filed a petition to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board, according to the Sun-Times.

The petitioning faculty members are asking for an election for a bargaining unit that would represent adjuncts, part-timers and full-timers not on the coveted tenure track. They make up about 40 percent of the prestigious university's faculty.

"Without a union, the employer is free to cut benefits and pay, increase class sizes and all kinds of things at their whim, and we have no recourse," Janet Sedlar, a senior lecturer and Spanish language coordinator at the school, told the Sun-Times. "We want a stronger voice in decisions made by the university that affect both us and our students."

If the labor board approves the request for elections, a union vote could happen this fall. Adjuncts, who account for about 70 percent of university faculty nationwide, have been attempting to unionize as a part of the national Faculty Forward movement. Locally, organizing efforts have also taken place at Loyola, DePaul and Northwestern but University of Chicago faculty are the first to file a petition with the NLRB.

Part of the movement's agenda includes: a nationwide minimum salary of $15,000 per course and benefits for adjunct instructors.

The City Council recently passed a non-binding resolution supporting Faculty Forward at universities within the city. Chicago universities employed more than 6,500 faculty members not on the tenure track, according to 2013 data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

The University of Chicago's endowment was worth $7.6 billion as of June 30, according to Bloomberg.