This article examines how teachers unions affect teachers' well-being under various legal institutions. Using a district-teacher matched data set, this study identifies the union effects by three approaches. First, I contrast teacher outcomes across different state laws toward unions. Second, I compare the union-nonunion differentials within the…

Teacher strikes and walkouts in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and elsewhere grabbed public attention last spring, but these wildfires of statewide activism are unlikely to spread far. In most states, teachers have unique and powerful advantages in local politics--advantages they are unlikely to give up anytime soon--and they are already active…

American public higher education systems include the largest and most impactful colleges and universities in the nation, including 75 percent of the nation's public sector students. While their impact is enormous, they are largely neglected as an area of study and underutilized as an instrument for the improvement of postsecondary outcomes.…

This article explores the relationship between unionization and academic freedom protections for sessional faculty in Ontario universities. Specifically, we compare university policies and contract provisions with a view to determining whether unionized sessionals hired on a per-course basis have stronger academic freedom protections than their…

This article focuses on the relation between new public management (NPM) reforms and changing patterns of industrial relations (IRs) and social dialogue in the Italian education system. Drawing on data from the research project 'Social dialogue and industrial relations in education: The challenges of multi-level governance and privatisation in…

Teachers unions have had a "muscular" presence in some states, but in others, especially in the South and Southwest, the unions have held little power in recent decades, and the growing dominance of conservative Republicans in state legislatures and statehouses was creating a hostile environment with right-to-work (RTW) laws. The…

This chapter analyzes collective bargaining agreements in 4-year institutions of higher education, examining language surrounding ownership, use, and distribution of the proceeds of intellectual property in distance education, and identifying ways in which the public good can be, and occasionally is, built in to contractual provisions.

Right-to-work (RTW) laws neither provide opportunity for gainful employment nor a higher standard of living. In truth, by ending a union's ability to charge administrative fees to employees who benefit from their collectively bargained contract, these laws aim to weaken unions and silence workers. They are designed to help employers, not workers.…

In many school districts the policies that regulate personnel are governed by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) negotiated between teachers' unions and school boards. While there is significant policy attention and, in some cases, legislative action that has affected the scope of these agreements, there is relatively little research that…

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…

The tables have turned on Michigan's public school boards and other school officials. As a result of changes to the state's labor law in 2023, school districts face the risk of losing some authority to determine who should be teaching in their classrooms. Teachers unions are empowered once again to demand districts treat teachers as if they are…

Teacher quality is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement, and closing the growing pay gap between teachers and other college graduate professionals is critical to public education. This report provides an update to a series that has tracked public school teacher wages and compensation over the last two decades.…

This paper explores trade union collective voice as a mechanism for worker participation in training decision making. New Zealand is an example of a liberal market economy (LME) with relatively weak regulatory pressure on employers to engage in training. Consequently, drivers such as trade union collective voice could fill an important role in…

The 50-State Comparison on teacher employment contract policies provides a national comparison of teacher employment contract policies in all states. All of the information was gathered from and focused on state statutes and regulations. State case law was also utilized for metrics related to collective bargaining. Data collection focused…

Purpose: Originally written in the 1990s but unpublished, the paper is now revised; the purpose of this paper is to examine the context of the formation of the Educational Workers League of NSW in 1931 with particular emphasis on the NSW Crown Employees (Teachers) Conciliation Committee and the enactment of its agreement in the worsening economic…