Despite decades of Equal Opportunity legislation, gender inequality persists in Australian universities. This is largely due to the shaping of universities by new market principles, discourses of individualisation that render the asymmetry of gender relations invisible, and privileging masculine epistemologies. Concurrently, industrial relations…

On October 16, 2017, over 12,000 faculty, librarians, and counsellors in 24 independent postsecondary colleges in Ontario, Canada went on strike for the fourth time since they organized in 1971 as members of the Civil Service Association of Ontario and won their first collective agreement the next year. Begun as an apolitical, self-consciously…

Efforts to unionize students at private universities are gaining momentum. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has agreed to reconsider whether graduate students at private nonprofit colleges and universities should be treated as employees under the National Labor Relations Act. The case, "New School", Case No. 02- RC-143009,…

In its stunning and far-reaching decision in the "Pacific Lutheran University" case (12/16/14), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) opened the door to union organizing among faculty at thousands of private-sector institutions, both secular and religious. The question before the NLRB was whether a local of the Service Employees…

When he first came to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in 1973, reports Phil Kugler, there was no such thing as labor-management collaboration. It was a term he had never heard of, and no one used it. Back then, the focus was on supporting local unions in their struggles to win collective bargaining rights. At the time, teachers were…

Back in the mid-2000s, in public and in the news media, Joseph P. Burke, then superintendent of the Springfield public schools, and Timothy T. Collins, president of the local teachers' union, often seemed to be at odds with each other. Out of the public eye, however, the two men had begun meeting regularly. When Burke left the district, the work…

Can a teachers' union successfully be both a hardball-playing defender of its rights and a collaborative force for the common good? It is both a question of philosophy and, increasingly, one of policy direction for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), whose biennial convention in Detroit showed delegates grappling with the tension between…

When the economy is depressed, resources are limited, mandates are overwhelming, and the organizational climate in the district is souring, education leaders and teachers union officials often brace themselves for contentious negotiations. Poor economic conditions affect the district's ability to offer raises, maintain current benefit levels, and…

Faced with arguably the biggest crisis of its 155-year history--the loss of at least 100,000 full-time members--the nation's largest union plans to respond by organizing thousands of new members and transforming itself into an even more politically potent force. Whether the National Education Association (NEA) can accomplish those goals while…

In the Fall 2007, there were landmark labor contracts agreed upon between the United Autoworkers (UAW) and the Big Three Automakers--General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler LLC. The impetus for these truly historic labor agreements was to afford the automakers to remain competitive in the global market while labor was to be protected.…

Teachers' unions are under unprecedented bipartisan attack. The drumbeat is relentless, from governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to the film directors of "Waiting for 'Superman'" and "The Lottery"; from new lobbying groups like Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst and Wall Street's Democrats for Education Reform to political columnists such as Jonathan Alter…

Massive protests have been the norm in Wisconsin, since Gov. Scott Walker unveiled a plan to strip many collective bargaining rights from teachers and most other public employees. GOP elected officials are pursuing similar measures in Ohio and other states. But in the DeForest district, like some others around the state, collective bargaining,…

In many school districts, business managers--not superintendents--are the ones who deal with labor relations, negotiating or participating on the negotiations team. Business managers who oversee the human resources department may find themselves dealing with labor relations on a regular basis. In this article, the author discusses four labor…

In the vast majority of school districts, the collective-bargaining process has evolved little during the past few decades. Teachers unions have successfully represented teachers' economic and job security interests by linking them to collective bargaining and procedural due process rights, but district administrators continue to make the…

On February 1, 2012, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed a "right to work" (RTW) provision in the state's labor laws, making Indiana the 23rd RTW state in the nation. In addition to becoming the 23rd RTW state in the nation, Indiana is the first in more than a decade to pass a law undermining the ability of unions to organize and…