The US Supreme Court will hear the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, where some anti-union high school teachers are trying to avoid paying an agency fee to the union that represents them, as part of the so-called “right to work” campaign. Let’s ignore for a moment the devastating effects such a ruling against…
An article on Inside Higher Ed today, on the threat to faculty unions through a case on its way to the Supreme Court, includes this: “If the Supreme Court rules that ‘fair share’ violates the First Amendment rights of public employees, they would transform the entire public sector into right to work, more appropriately named ‘right to…
The two great parts of American higher education are the students and the faculty. The administrators are only around to facilitate the learning of the former and the teaching and research of the latter. Or that’s the way we imagine it. Over the past fifty years, the students have become customers instead of learners and…
Uninsured, by State, in August 2014: Source: Gallup Well-Being Index [http://www.well-beingindex.com/]. Uninsured, by County, in August 2014: Source: Enroll America [https://www.enrollamerica.org/research-maps/maps/changes-in-uninsured-rates-by-county/] Percentages Using Federal Exchanges: Source: Washington Center for Equitable Growth [http://equitablegrowth.org/interactive/aca-beneficiaries/] __________________________ Previous posts in this series have included: Part 1: Population Growth and Movement: https://academeblog.org/2013/04/03/2666/. Part 2: Immigration: https://academeblog.org/2013/04/21/right-to-work-by-the-numbers-part-2/. Part…
In June 2004, the full-time faculty at Point Park University voted overwhelmingly to join the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, or CWA Local 38061, making it the first Guild local to represent faculty at a major university. This week, the National Labor Relations Board issued this ruling, rejecting the university administration’s arguments on why it should…
This is a guest post by John McNay, a contributor to the May–June issue of Academe. McNay is a professor of history at the University of Cincinnati–Blue Ash. A specialist on the Cold War, he has published books and articles on that period, but his most recent book is Collective Bargaining and the Battle of Ohio: The…
The most recent issue of the Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy is available at http://thekeep.eiu.edu/jc. The issue includes two op-eds and four articles. Here are excerpts from each of the op-eds and the first of the articles: Boris, Richard (2014) “From Ivory to Babel to A New Foundation,” Journal of Collective Bargaining in…
The most recent issue of the Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy is available at http://thekeep.eiu.edu/jc. The issue includes two op-eds and four articles. Here are excerpts from the second through fourth articles: Hicks, Steve (2014) “Post-Recession CBAs: A Study of Wage Increases in the Agreements of Four State-wide Faculty Unions,” Journal of Collective…
Declining Union Membership “Over the last three decades, U.S. labor union membership has fallen by nearly half, even though more Americans are actually in favor of unionization. “Some 11% of all wage and salary workers in 2014 were in a union — down from 22% in 1983 after peaking at nearly 35% in 1954, according…