Bargaining academic staffing issues

Our work on academic staffing is about building power to change the way colleges, universities and states think about instruction in higher education. To that end, we not only seek legislative solutions, but we are also constantly organizing to gain greater power, and we work to use that power in contract campaigns and at the bargaining table. This work is grounded in what local unions have been working on, and continue to work on, through collective bargaining.

To help local unions continue that work and to achieve a more fair and equitable staffing structure, AFT has developed a new resource, the Faculty and College Excellence Collective Bargaining Toolkit The aim of the toolkit is to put academic staffing issues front and center at the bargaining table, but to do that in a way that also grows our unions, educates the public, and moves policymakers and legislators to support higher education. The Toolkit provides advice on three important phases of the campaign:

Gearing Up - assessing the local's contract and capacity and developing a bargaining agenda

Execution - bargaining and activities to support the local's bargaining work

After the Campaign - assessing your gains, consolidating your coalitions, and looking ahead

Please download the Toolkitand make your local's bargaining efforts part of a broader campaign for equity. Please contact us if you'd like assistance in integrating these issues into your own contract negotiations.

AFT has also produced a series of publications to help guide this bargaining, including:

• Fairness and Equity: Standards of Good Practice in the Employment of Part-time/Adjunct Faculty
• Professionals and Colleagues: Standards of Good Practice in the Employment of Full-time Nontenure-Track Faculty
• Recognition and Respect: Standards of Good Practice in the Employment of Graduate Employees

This section of our website is dedicated to capturing as many of these efforts and successes as possible. As we say on each page that documents these achievements, if your contract has provisions that should be included here, please contact us and let us know.