University of Oregon faculty are finally unionizing. American Federation of Teachers and American Association of University Professors filed jointly, on March 13, a petition to represent all 1,912 full-time and part-time faculty including tenure-track, non-tenure track, adjunct, emeritus, library faculty and research assistants. The only group not included in the proposed bargaining unit is faculty in the School of Law.
But that turned, in a three-year joint campaign by the two unions, organizer Yonna Carroll told the Labor Press. Now, under the state’s public employee card check law, the university will have to recognize and bargain with their union — United Academics of the University of Oregon — once a state agency confirms that a majority have signed authorization cards. The university will have seven days to give its employee list to the Employment Relations Board, and another seven days to dispute the nature of the proposed bargaining unit.
The union would be affiliated with both AAUP and AFT, an arrangement that exists at several other schools, including Rutgers University.
The UO faculty group is the largest group to unionize under the “card check” provisions since that law was passed in 2007.
[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article reported erroneously that UO was the last state school in Oregon where faculty were members of a professional association but did not engage in collective bargaining. Professors at Oregon State University remain non-union.]
