Editor’s Note: This is the second in a four-part series about faculty unionization.

While Ohio University faculty members consider unionizing, some are raising questions about what a union will bargain for and how it could affect students.

“The union sets its own agenda,” said Patrick Shaw, a labor lawyer and associate secretary of the national American Association of University Professors. “The national organization, the state organization — nobody sets the agenda but the faculty at Ohio University. So they’re going to be the ones that determine what they’re going to bargain for and what counts most.”

Faculty unions most often negotiate salaries, benefits, and workload and grievance policies on behalf of their members. Some OU faculty worry that if they unionize everything from parking to paper allotment will become negotiable, but faculty and administrators who have worked in unions before said that is very unlikely.

“My experience is no,” said College of Communication Sen. Joseph Slade. “That is, the administration doesn’t come back in some kind of petty way and say, ‘OK, you’re going to have to pay for your own typing paper,’ or something like that.”

Slade was at Long Island University in Brooklyn when the faculty there unionized. He said he was reluctant at first because of concerns about a lack of professionalism and a more adversarial relationship between faculty and administrators, but ended up pleased with the outcome.

“After the union was formed and began operating, none of those things really happened,” Slade said. “It makes things easier and reminds people of what their responsibilities are.”

Faculty Senate began discussing unionization after administrators announced plans to reinvest the faculty health care surplus in other parts of the university. Since then, administrators have said they will return faculty contributions, but still plan to reinvest the university’s contribution. Resolving this question over health care spending is just one example of what faculty would like to bargain for.

Some faculty members say the administration reneged on an agreement from a few years ago over health care spending. Administrators, though, say faculty need to be a little flexible.

“If the administration is signing off on resolutions, they should honor that,” said Marty Tuck, associate provost for academic affairs. “(But) times change. So a resolution that’s signed 25 years ago by a president that’s three or four presidents ago, how binding is that into the future?”

Faculty members cite the health care debate as an example of failed shared governance and some hope that the union will help address that.

“I’ve never seen a place that so distances faculty from real decision-making on the educational process,” said Joe Bernt, secretary of OU’s AAUP chapter. “If faculty are going to have any control over their lives on this campus and the education on this campus, it’s going to be because they will be a union.”

Others question whether a union can really solve the problem of shared governance.

“We’re not exploited workers,” Arts and Sciences Sen. Geoff Buckley said. “There are things I’d like to change … but I’m open to learning more about what a union could offer.”

Several faculty members said they’re not sure there really is a shared governance issue. Toby Stock, a faculty senator for the College of Business, said he shares some of his colleagues’ frustration on some points but sees the need for a clear hierarchy at a university.

“Shared governance is exactly what it says — shared,” Stock said. “And I don’t know if it’s fair to say shared governance doesn’t exist here because the provost, for example, has failed to sign some of our resolutions. There is a difference between being heard and being agreed with.”

Tuck echoed Stock’s comments.

“I think the faculty do have a voice,” he said. “I think this administration has bent over backward to have committees with faculty representation … (but) major decisions of this university cannot be made by committee. … This is why you pay the provost and the president large sums of money — to make these decisions.”

Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association, which has represented California state faculty since 1983, said she thinks her association has improved faculty involvement.

“I’m not suggesting that we solved the problem of shared governance, but it certainly has been my experience that when the faculty get organized — and we’re the folks who do the organizing — they start to figure out ways to make their voices stronger,” Taiz said.

On unionized campuses, faculty senates continue to function and retain control over academic and curricular matters, while the union deals with conditions of employment.

Faculty and administrators who have been involved on unionized campuses say there is rarely an impact on students unless the faculty goes on strike.

College of Business Dean Hugh Sherman, who was a doctoral student at Temple University under a unionized faculty strike, said faculty were on strike for a couple of weeks and then had to reschedule their classes before or within the scheduled end date of the semester to make sure students got their money’s worth.

“My experience there — and the faculty said it, too — it became a real divisive argument,” Sherman said of the union.

But strikes occur infrequently, according to the AAUP.

“I can say with confidence, however, that strikes by faculty at four-year institutions are very rare,” Shaw said.

Slade said students were very supportive of the unionization effort in New York because “they thought faculty would be more aligned with their interests.”

“None of the essentials change,” he said. “It doesn’t affect student rights, it doesn’t affect teaching.”