Nontenure-track faculty at the University of Michigan have voted overwhelmingly to be represented by the Lecturers' Employee Organization. The Michigan Employment Relations Commission mailed ballots on April 10 and held the count and announced results on April 29. The vote was 631 for representation and 135 against.

LEO will represent 1,270 full- and part-time lecturers, adjuncts and visiting professors and is affiliated with the Michigan Federation of Teachers & School Related Personnel/AFT.

Job security and low pay are the major concerns of the faculty, who teach nearly half the total undergraduate credit hours at the university, but are often hired on a semester-by-semester basis for a fraction of the salary and benefits of their tenured and tenure-track colleagues. "Many of us worry every year about getting reappointed," says Margaretha Sudarsih, who teaches at the Ann Arbor campus.

The vote followed a successful membership drive and more than two months of negotiations between LEO organizing committee members and university administrators on a definition of the bargaining unit. In this last phase, the political clout of the state federation played a key role. "The Democrats on the elected board of regents were very supportive, as was the state representative and state senator from the Ann Arbor area," says MFT&SRP president David Hecker.  "This support helped result in a bargaining unit both the administration and MFT could agree upon."

LEO is part of a growing number of locals within the AFT that represent nontenure-track faculty.  In Michigan, MFT&SRP already represents lecturers at Eastern Michigan University, and the UM Graduate Employees Organization, which helped in the campaign. The AFT represents more nontenure-track faculty, both full-time and part-time than all other unions combined. See also related press release on this story.  [Barbara McKenna]

[April 30, 2003]