Dive Brief:
- Efforts to unionize adjunct professors are running into resistance from some unexpected sources, such as tenure-track professors, according to speakers at the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions' annual conference.
- Part-time instructors at colleges may resist unionizing their own jobs because they don’t want to be known as non-tenure staff, or for their poor working conditions.
- As might be more expected, administrators can be resistant to union organizing because they don’t want to relinquish control over working conditions, and board members from corporate backgrounds may oppose unions under any circumstance.
Dive Insight:
Tenure-track professors may resist the unionization of adjunct professors because they don’t want to give up their power over faculty appointments or governance, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. Not all administrators speaking at the conference were opposed to unions — some described their relationships with union organizers as collegial and constructive. Another problem for union organizers is disagreement among adjunct professors about their goals in establishing a union, because some may be teaching as a side job and have little interest in the pay, while others are trying to make a living solely from their adjunct work.
