There is the American Associate of University Professors (AAUP) and some state schools have voted for such union representation. Interestingly, where faculty are members of the AAUP there frequently is a contract that makes faculty salaries standard by rank. Administrators like this, but most faculty do not want standardized salaries by rank; it ignores supply and demand and other market and professional realities. The AAUP does publish data and makes recommendations concerning faculty issues but is not particularly popular on most campuses and does not have any leverage against administrators.
My partner is a union member, contngent faculty instructor at a private California university. (Through some of those intricate relationships the exist within organized labor, they are ultimately an appendage of Cal Federation of Teachers.) They have a contract - not all they'd want, but a contract - and a considerable grievance apparatus to enforce it. Makes teaching somewhat less precarious and resistant to arbitrary pressures.
Most people don't understand anything about "contingent" faculty and the problems they face in academia. I'm glad that your partner has a contract with a decent grievance apparatus. I'm also glad that graduate students at so many universities are organizing unions. They've been sorely taken advantage of for too long.
Profs need unions to collectivize resistance to BS.
There is the American Associate of University Professors (AAUP) and some state schools have voted for such union representation. Interestingly, where faculty are members of the AAUP there frequently is a contract that makes faculty salaries standard by rank. Administrators like this, but most faculty do not want standardized salaries by rank; it ignores supply and demand and other market and professional realities. The AAUP does publish data and makes recommendations concerning faculty issues but is not particularly popular on most campuses and does not have any leverage against administrators.
My partner is a union member, contngent faculty instructor at a private California university. (Through some of those intricate relationships the exist within organized labor, they are ultimately an appendage of Cal Federation of Teachers.) They have a contract - not all they'd want, but a contract - and a considerable grievance apparatus to enforce it. Makes teaching somewhat less precarious and resistant to arbitrary pressures.
Most people don't understand anything about "contingent" faculty and the problems they face in academia. I'm glad that your partner has a contract with a decent grievance apparatus. I'm also glad that graduate students at so many universities are organizing unions. They've been sorely taken advantage of for too long.