I haven’t seen the whole article because I don’t have a subscription to The Chronicle of Higher Education, but I thought this might be something regular reader here might find interesting: “In Rare Move, Professors at Michigan Technological U. Vote to Drop Their Union.” The only part I’ve read so far:
Faculty members and administrators at Michigan Technological University are dealing with years’ worth of tension that flashed into public view last week when professors there voted out the union that had represented them for just over three years.
Both supporters and opponents…
That’s all I got. But still kind of interesting.
This is a rare and interesting case; the vote to decertify the faculty union at Michigan Tech was pretty close, about 136-143, if I recall correctly. And the faculty had just unionized a few years ago. Apparently lots of the engineering profs resented having to pay dues. Voting out an established collective bargaining agent is rarely done — nearly all unionized workers, regardless of field of labor, come to recognize that having a union is better than not, no matter how imperfect the union may be. At Michigan Tech, the AAUP will continue as a non-collective bargaining organization.