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What is Collective Bargaining Rights/enabling legislation?

Collective Bargaining Rights/enabling legislation ensures employees have the right to decide for themselves if they would like to be represented through collective bargaining. The academic staff and faculty at more than 1000 public colleges and universities across the United States have this right. TAUWP, along with our affiliate AFT-Wisconsin, is working to change Wisconsin state law so that faculty and academic staff throughout the UW system would be able to exercise this right if they so choose. Currently, faculty and academic staff in the technical colleges, K-12 teachers, and UW system graduate employees have this right, as do attorneys, accountants, and scientists employed by the state. Under the proposed collective bargaining rights legislation, UW academic staff and faculty would have the right to vote on whether they would like to be represented by a union for the purposes of negotiating wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.

What can I do to ensure that Collective Bargaining Rights legislation is signed into law?

There are a number of ways to become active in our campaign for collective bargaining rights. Join TAUWP, the union of UW system academic staff and faculty, at www.tauwp.org. By joining your union, you stand with your colleagues on campus and throughout the state in support of CB rights for faculty and academic staff. Become active in the political process. In this past election, TAUWP members, along with colleagues from other unions, played an important role in bringing us closer to achieving collective bargaining rights by helping to change the make-up of the state assembly. Over the next few months, TAUWP will be scheduling forums and meetings with legislators from around the state to discuss collective bargaining rights legislation. We will be reaching out to members to attend these meetings. Once the legislature is in session, we encourage you to contact your state senator and assembly person and urge them to support the legislation.

 

 

Once the legislation is signed into law, academic staff and faculty at campuses in the UW system will have the right to move forward with a collective bargaining election if they so choose. If the academic staff and faculty on a campus decide to pursue collective bargaining representation, the union will work with them to develop and implement a collective bargaining campaign and file for a representation election. TAUWP, as part of AFT-Wisconsin, will provide resources and expertise on how best to move forward, but it will be up to the academic staff and faculty on a campus to determine if they are ready to proceed. After a successful vote for collective bargaining representation, we will all work together—with the advice and assistance of staff from TAUWP and AFT—to develop contract proposals and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.

 

 

The data from other unionized campuses show that academic staff and faculty gain the most when they are part of the same union local with one collective bargaining agreement for all. In these cases, the union is able to more successfully ensure job security and governance rights for all, while also negotiating fair raises for both faculty and academic staff. These combined units are also able to pool resources in order to be more effective at the bargaining table, in the legislature, and in outreach to the community. TAUWP believes that combined faculty/academic staff unions are the strongest unions. The proposed Collective Bargaining Rights legislation provides for the creation of combined academic staff/faculty collective bargaining units, if both groups on campus so choose. Although the proposed legislation defines separate bargaining units for academic staff and faculty on each campus, the legislation includes a process for moving ahead with a combined unit at the time of the election. It also provides processes for combining units later on or adding one group to a pre-existing unit (i.e., the faculty on a campus vote to join an academic staff unit already in place). The legislation is structured to provide the faculty and academic staff on a given campus with the maximum flexibility to proceed in the way that is in their best interest.

 

 

The first step toward an election would be a “showing of interest.” This means that a threshold percentage of faculty and/or academic staff on a campus have signed cards indicating their interesting in having a collective bargaining representation election. Once this threshold is reached, the union would file with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) for an election. Under the proposed legislation, the threshold percentage is 30%. In the case of a combined academic staff/faculty unit, the threshold will be 30% from each group. AFT advises filing when 60-65% of faculty and/or academic staff have signed cards because this ensures that a majority of employees are interested in proceeding with an election. Once cards are filed with WERC and once the union and the UW system agree to the composition of the bargaining unit, a date for a secret ballot election is set. Typically, higher ed. union elections take place on campus over a number of days to ensure the highest level of participation as possible. The election would be administered by the WERC, with observers from both the faculty/academic staff union and the administration. After the election closes, the WERC official will count the ballots “for” unionization and the ballots “against” unionization. A majority of those voting will determine the outcome of the election. In order for the union to prevail in the case of an election for a combined academic staff/faculty union, a majority of those voting from both groups will need to vote for the union. As with other democratic elections, the outcome is determined by a majority of those who participate in the vote. Historically, the participation in academic union elections is high—often more than 90% of the unit votes. If the union prevails in the election, we then begin working on building our local and preparing for collective bargaining negotiations.

 

There is no requirement for mandatory union dues under the proposed legislation. We believe that the best way to ensure a strong collective bargaining agreement that protects the rights of all academic staff and faculty is to build a strong, active membership. After a successful collective bargaining representation election on campus, TAUWP members will be reaching out to colleagues to join the union so that we can work together to negotiate fair salaries, benefits, and job security. The legislation does provide a process for holding an election for a fair-share agreement if at least thirty percent of the faculty and/or academic staff on a given campus sign a petition calling for an election. In order for a fair-share agreement to be implemented, a super-majority of two-thirds of the faculty and/or academic staff would need to vote in favor fair share. All faculty and academic staff who are members of the bargaining unit would be able to vote in this election, whether or not they were union members. If the faculty and/or academic staff voted for a fair-share agreement, then non-members would be required to pay their “fair share” to cover expenses related to negotiating and maintaining the collective bargaining agreement and defending academic staff and faculty through the union-negotiated grievance procedure. The current legislation also provides similar process for a maintenance of membership agreement election. If the maintenance of membership election were successful, faculty and/or academic staff who are members of the union at the time of the negotiation of the collective bargaining agreement (or who decide to join afterwards) must maintain their membership for the duration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. 

 

 

TAUWP is the only organization that works to advance the shared interests of academic staff and faculty throughout the UW system. We have successfully won improved compensation and health benefits for academic staff and faculty through lobbying and direct action. Over the past years, we have fought for and won an improved sick leave plan academic staff and faculty and sabbatical leave for faculty. We also represent our members on and off campus when workplace disputes need to be resolved. We are able to achieve our goals through the collective action of our membership. With collective bargaining, we will be able to continue all these activities. With collective bargaining, we will also be able to sit at the negotiating table as equals with the administration to negotiate legally binding contracts to improve our salaries, benefits and working conditions.

 

 

Academic staff and faculty at academic institutions with collective bargaining have made a number of significant gains in upholding professional standards, protecting and promoting quality education for students, and ensuring that workplace rights are protected. For instance, through collective bargaining, unionized faculty and academic staff have negotiated legally binding grievance procedures, guaranteed funding for professional development funds for faculty and academic staff, salary pools to address compression and/or gender inequity, contract language for ensuring long-term job security for non-tenure-track instructional staff, contract language on faculty: student ratios, workload language, domestic partner benefits, and improved salary structures, to name a few.

 

 

At other campuses around the country, collective bargaining is a tool for strengthening shared governance. Many academic unions write protections for shared governance into collective bargaining agreements. On these campuses, governance is no longer “advisory”; instead it has the force of a legally binding collective bargaining agreement. At Kent State and the University of Vermont, for instance, the collective bargaining agreements include contract language that outlines the role of faculty and academic staff in the shared governance processes on campus; the Portland State University collective bargaining agreement contains language that references the state statutes and policies on shared governance. Moreover, collective bargaining strengthens the faculty and academic staff’s voice on such issues as salary, retirement benefits, and health insurance. Unlike our current situation, there can be no unilateral changes to these terms and conditions of employment when they are negotiated into a binding collective bargaining agreement. Collective bargaining also provides greater democracy and transparency in the development of compensation and benefit plans because members elect fellow members to negotiate at the bargaining table and all members have the opportunity to vote on any tentative agreements made at the bargaining table.