Vermont College academic staff are celebrating an overwhelming victory after voting 37 to 4 on March 16 to affiliate with United Professions of Vermont/AFT, the union representing faculty at Vermont State Colleges and the University of Vermont. The vote for the union, they say, will help them regain the voice they lost when Union Institute and University took over the school in 2001.

In the past, staff at the private college in Montpelier were accustomed to being heard—they voiced opinions at Vermont town meetings, had input on policymaking and relied on collaboration to get things done. When the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Union Institute came in with a new president and a corporate, top-down management style, the culture clash was inevitable.

Union Institute spoke of "open, honest communication," but when it came to really listening and acting on staff input, management turned a deaf ear, says Anne Connor, director of the Academic Support Network at Vermont College and a leader in the movement to organize.

The administration imposed a leave conversion plan, for example, that resulted in all employees losing six sick days—a decision made without any input from the staff, says Connor.  Also, non-salaried staff must now clock in and out in the morning, at lunch and at the end of the day within a five-minute window. "It undermines a sense of trust that existed before," says Connor.

Staff are also upset that a personnel policy manual that had been in the works for some time was rewritten by the college's new head of human resources without regard to the previous work of staff leaders.

It was clear from the beginning that the union vote would be successful when 71 percent of eligible staff signed cards indicating their desire for a union vote.

Negotiations on a contract are expected to begin within two months. When staff go to the bargaining table, says Jamie Kline, an active organizer in the undergraduate program, they go as academics. Quoted in the local newspaper, Kline said that means, "We're thinking about the three R's: respect, respect, respect." [Virginia Myers Kelly]

March 17, 2006