Professors elsewhere unionize; what about Yale?

Though Yale has a history as a hotbed of labor agitation, they have been spared on at least one count. While graduate student attempts to unionize have been a highly visible source of controversy, professors have largely avoided taking action. Widespread satisfaction is not necessarily the reason—professors at Yale and other private universities are currently prohibited from unionizing.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) brought together almost two dozen college representatives to discuss this ban of faculty unions at private colleges in Hartford from Fri., Mar. 17 to Sun., Mar. 19. The AFT represents over 100 million people, including over 120,000 professors and staff members at universities and colleges across the country.

DAVID GEST/YH Yale professors may have strong feelings about unionization, but their lips are sealed.

While no Yale representatives attended the AFT conference, faculty from Cornell University, Cooper Union, Mitchell College, Franklin Pierce, Bryant College, and Long Island University all attended, according to Jamie Horowitz, a spokesperson for the AFT. "The conference was primarily for those [private] colleges that were already unionized to discuss where we are now and where we are going," Horowitz said.

The current status of unions at private universities is based on a 1980 Supreme Court decision, National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] v. Yeshiva University. It arose when the Yeshiva University Faculty Association filed a petition with the NLRB for certification as a bargaining agent. The university blocked the petition on the grounds that all of its faculty members are managerial or supervisory personnel—not unionizable employees.

The 1935 act forming the NLRB maintains the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively with their employers. The NLRB conducts secret-ballot elections to determine whether employees want to unionize, and scrutinizes and corrects unfair practice by both unions and employers. While the NLRB granted the union's petition, the university appealed the decision, and the Supreme Court eventually ruled that all faculty members of any private university are management due to the extent of their decision-making power. According to Horowitz, this ruling explains why the State University of New York has unions while Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, which allow their professors greater decision-making power, do not.

However, Horowitz explained, "Despite this decision, the AFT was able to maintain unions on [some] private campuses. The colleges either gave few decisions to the faculty members, so that the Supreme Court's ruling didn't apply to them, or individual colleges thought that their faculty had the right to join a union."

Groups at the AFT conference discussed current NLRB actions, including recent rulings in favor of professors unionizing at Manhattan College and the University of Great Falls in Montana. In both cases, the decisions have been appealed by the institutions and are still pending in the courts.

Should the courts find again in the professors' favor, Horowitz feels, the impact on other institutions could be significant. "Once they rule on this, and we believe they will because the regions tend to reflect current majority thinking, there will be a change in the law," Horowitz said. "Essentially a new era for private colleges will be going on, and people at places like Yale will be very active in creating unions."

Political science Professor Rogers Smith, who teaches Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, holds a different opinion. According to Smith, whether or not there should be a union for professors varies considerably for the university in question.

"If the faculty is generally in a managerial role, it is not appropriate for them to be unionized," he said, "but at most universities the faculty have limited economic decisions of the institution. At many uni-versities, a union might be a good idea."

However, Smith predicts that there will not be much support for a union by the tenured faculty and only mixed support among the junior faculty at Yale. He also thinks that tenured professors exercise too much administrative power to not be considered management. "I remain skeptical that tenured professors will be decreed eligible," Smith said. "This might change, but I don't expect it to. I predict there will not be faculty unions at Yale."

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