Academic Unions in Recessionary Times

Abstract

THIS ARTICLE INVESTIGATES HOW UNIONIZATION AFFECTED THE WAY COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES HANDLED ISSUES RELATING TO FACULTY PAY AND LAYOFFS, DEGREE PROGRAM CANCELLATIONS AND TEACHING LOADS, AND STUDENT SERVICES DURING THE SEVERE RECESSION THAT HIT THE COUNTRY BETWEEN LATE 2007 AND EARLY 2010. THE DATA ARE FROM A NATIONAL SURVEY OF DEPARTMENT CHAIRS. THE RESULTS REVEAL THAT UNIONIZATION REDUCED THE LIKELIHOOD OF FACULTY PAY ACTIONS AND THAT CLASSES WOULD BE TAUGHT AT EXTENDED TIMES, BUT WAS ASSOCIATED WITH A GREATER CHANCE THAT CLASSES WOULD BE OFFERED AT OFF-CAMPUS LOCATIONS. UNIONIZATION HAD NO EFFECT ON BUDGET CUTS, WHETHER FACULTY WERE LAID-OFF OR HAD THEIR TEACHING LOADS INCREASED, AND WHETHER NEW PROGRAMS WERE SET UP TO MEET STATE AND/OR COMMUNITY NEEDS. 1 Rothgeb and Mitakides: Academic Unions in Recessionary Times Published by Carroll Collected, 2015 8 One of the most controversial issues in higher education relates to how faculty unions affect the operation of U.S colleges and universities. As the American Association of University Professors (AAUP, 2011, p. 17) and the Chronicle of Higher Education (Schmidt, 2011, p. 2) report, governors and legislators in several states recently acted to limit or ban collective bargaining by state employees (including those working in higher education) in the belief that it creates excessive compensation and prevents institutions from streamlining their operations by cutting budgets and eliminating outdated programs and unneeded employees. Examples of such anti-union behavior include a 2011 Wisconsin law that required yearly recertification of public sector unions and limited the issues over which they could collectively bargain; Ohio Senate Bill 5 (SB5), which attempted to circumscribe unions at public universities by classifying faculty as managers; and a proposed Florida regulation that would severely restrict the rights of public employees to form unions. While controversies over collective bargaining have been part of academia since faculty unions formed a half-century ago, recent conflicts occurred within the context of the financial problems stemming from the severe national recession between late 2007 and early 2010, as higher education expenditures nationwide dropped by $4 billion from 2008 to 2009 and by 15 percent overall between 2008 and 2012 (Clark, 2009; Nicas and McWhirter, 2012). As Douglass (2010, p. 8) notes, in 2009 and 2010 there were major spending cuts on higher education in 34 states, while AAUP surveys from 2009 to 2011 also show that the downturn also created steep decreases in the values of endowments and reductions in donations, which affected campuses nationwide (AAUP, 2009; 2010; 2011). These revenue-related problems resulted in campus budget cuts across the country and pressured institutions to revise student-education methods, to create new programs to meet community needs, and to deliver instruction at times, locations, and by methods more convenient for students (DeVise, 2009; Carnevale, 2010, p. viii; Douglass, 2010, pp. 9-10). Overall, these trends demanded that institutions shift their focus, eliminate outdated departments and nonproductive faculty, and cut administrative overhead (AAUP, 2009, p. 18; Selingo, 2012, p. A19), which magnifies the political demand to limit the role of unions in higher education (Chubb and Moe, 1990; Ponak, et. al., 1992; Deckop, et. al., 1993; Porter and Stephens, 2010). Despite these controversies over how unions function in academia, Wickens (2008) and Schmidt (2011) report that there has been little research on how unions affect the way colleges and universities handle these types of financial problems. Instead, the research to date has focused on such issues as: why unions form and what issues are addressed with collective bargaining; how unions affect faculty salaries, benefits, and productivity; and how collective bargaining affects campus decision-making. Regarding union formation, for example, Cameron (1985) and Wickens (2008) maintain that unions are most likely to appear when faculty members have weak ties to their disciplines and there are administration/faculty conflicts; Goldey, et. al. (2010) indicate that the probability of union formation is enhanced when faculty members harbor pro-union sentiments and regard unions as useful for fighting injustice; Benedict (2012) states that unionization is more likely when pro-union faculty leaders establish personal ties to other faculty members and that administrators are somewhat passive; and Rassuli, et. al. (1999) note that, when forming unions faculty members tend to focus almost exclusively on salary and job security issues. Regarding research on salaries, benefits, and faculty productivity, while Barbezat (1989) found that collective bargaining led to higher salaries for tenured faculty members and Benedict (2007) reports that the ability of unions to raise salaries appears to grow over time, a reanalysis of the issue by Hedrick, et. al. (2011) with different data and control variables suggests that unions may do little to increase faculty pay. As for the issue of salary inequalities, there is widespread agreement that unions reduce department-todepartment variations in pay (Barbezat, 1989); some, but not all, of the salary inequities between men and women (Kesselring, 1991; Ashraf, 1997; Benedict, 1999); and compensation differences between minorities and other faculty members (Ashraf, 1997). Additionally, the analysis of how unions are related to faculty productivity reveals that unions may be associated with less faculty research activity (Meador and Walters, 1994), but do not affect faculty members’ willingness to engage in service activities or to work 2 The Journal of Economics and Politics, Vol. 22 [2015], Iss. 1, Art. 1 https://collected.jcu.edu/jep/vol22/iss1/1 9 with students and teach (Deckop, et. al., 1993; Wickens, 2008) and do not protect incompetent faculty (Rothgeb, 2014). Finally, investigations of how unions affect academic decision-making reveal that unionization increases the probability that faculty members receive tenure; that senior faculty obtain promotions; reduces some male/female differences in tenure and promotions (Benedict and Wilder, 1999); and also may enhance faculty influence over chair appointments and teaching loads (Porter and Stephens, 2010). Ponak et. al. (1992) and Wickens (2008) note, however, that unions typically do not intrude into matters normally handled by college/university senates and/or department chairs, such as governance issues, graduation requirements, hiring decisions, and teaching and committee assignments. While this research has been extremely valuable for providing insights into the role of unions in higher education, an important gap remains regarding the part unions played in resolving some of the issues that recently emerged. Research seeks to address these issues by investigating how unionization affected the way colleges and universities handled problems relating to faculty pay and to lay-offs; to the elimination of degree programs; to faculty teaching responsibilities; and to meeting their students’ educational needs in the 2008-2010 time period. Exploring these issues should provide useful additional insights into how unions operate in an academic setting and into the validity of the recent anti-union sentiments expressed by many political leaders.