Fight for Collective Bargaining Rights!

We are faculty–of all types and rank–of the University System of Maryland, Morgan State University, and St. Mary’s College. Some of us have worked here for decades. Some of us have just begun to teach here. As faculty, we know that Maryland’s public universities can only remain world-class institutions if they provide all faculty job security and enforceable contracts and vigorously defend academic freedom. We can only achieve these goals by winning the right to collective bargaining.

Maryland state law does not allow faculty in its public four-year colleges and universities to bargain collectively. More than 40,000 faculty, staff and graduate employees are employed across Maryland’s 14 public sector four-year institutions.[i] Maryland should follow the lead of other states and UMD peer institutions and expand its collective bargaining law to cover these workers.
The evidence supporting collective bargaining in higher education is clear. Collective bargaining enhances cost effectiveness, optimizes institutional efficiency[ii], reduces inequality[iii], boosts student achievement[iv], and improves university governance[v]. And yet, Maryland’s outdated laws continue to prevent higher ed workers – tenured and tenured stream faculty, full-time non-tenured faculty, research and clinical faculty, adjunct faculty, library faculty, and graduate students – from having a voice in determining the conditions under which they engage in knowledge production, research, and instruction.

Join us!

It’s beyond time for Annapolis to show faculty the right to collectively bargain. Stand up with United Academics of Maryland-University of Maryland (UAM-UMD) and join colleagues from across the state who are ready to fight for their voice, their academic freedom, fair pay, and strong job security.

It’s time!

[i] https://www.usmd.edu/about_usm/

[ii] Cassell, M., and Halaseh, O. (2014). “The Impact of Unionization on University Performance.” Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy, 6(1), 3, https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1314&context=jcba

[iii] Dominguez-Villegas, R., Smith-Doerr, L., Renski, H., and Sekarasih, L. (2020). “Labor Unions and Equal Pay for Faculty: A Longitudinal Study of Gender Pay Gaps in a Unionized Institutional Context,” Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy, 11(2), https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1793&context=jcba

[iv] The Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success, “Selected Research on Connections between Non-Tenure-Track Faculty and Student Learning, USC, 2020, https://pullias.usc.edu/download/selected-research-on-connections-between-non-tenure-track-faculty-and-student-learning-2020-2/

[v] Dionne M. Pohler, and Andrew A. Luchak, “Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice: The Impact of Unions and High-Involvement Work Practices on Work Outcomes,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 67, no. 4 (October 2014): 1063-1094, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019793914546295; Tove Helland Hammer and Ariel Avgar, “The Impact of Unions on Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, and Turnover,” Journal of Labor Research 26, no. 2 (June 2005): 241-266, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12122-005-1024-2; Carol Gill, “Union Impact on the Effective Adoption of High-Performance Work Practices,” Human Resource Management Review 19, no. 1 (March 2009): 39-50, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053482208000648; AAUP. “FAQS on Shared Governance.” https://www.aaup.org/programs/shared-governance/faqs-shared-governance