Are you ready to organize with AFT to improve your working conditions? Are you unsure what is involved in such a decision? Below is a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about organizing with AFT that should provide some answers. We have tried to keep the questions and answers limited and specific, so you may need to read several answers to get all the information you need on the various aspects of organizing at your institution. If you are new to the process of unionizing, you first may want to consult the Collective Bargaining Glossary.

You can also learn more about organizing with a particular AFT higher education constituency group (full-time or part-time faculty, professional staff or graduate employees) by clicking on that group’s link at the top of the page.

And of course, you can always contact the higher education department by e-mail or call us at 202/879-4426 with your questions.

Organizing FAQs

1. Can anyone form a union?
2. How do we get started with the AFT?
3. What is collective bargaining, and how does it work?
4. Do all AFT affiliates have collective bargaining?
5. What do higher education contracts contain?
6. Can we organize if we are in a private university or college?
7. Do laws about unions differ from state to state?
8. Do laws regulating unions vary for different higher educational professional groups (i.e., full-time, part-time faculty; graduate employees; professional staff, etc.)?
9. How much control over our own organization would we have if we affiliate with the AFT?
10. How much will it cost to become part of AFT?
11. Does AFT use dues money to elect political candidates?
12. What are the advantages of belonging to a national labor organization?

If you have additional questions, send them to the higher education department or call us at 202/879-4426.

A broad definition of a union is a group of employees who come together voluntarily with the shared goal of improving their working conditions and having a voice at their place of employment. Under this broad definition, the answer to who can form a union is: anyone who is an employee. However, there are many factors that impinge on that broad definition, including state and national laws, labor boards, the type of institution you work in, etc.

The AFT believes that all faculty (either full-time or part-time), professional and clerical staff, and graduate employees should have the right to organize and enjoy the benefits of union recognition. If outside factors hinder academic employees from organizing, the AFT believes that we should work collectively to change the environment to allow for a union to be formed and recognized. [back to top]

There are a number of steps a group might take to get a union started. Of course, the first step would be to contact the AFT. The higher education department can talk you through some of your questions and concerns. We can also put you in touch with our state organizations and our regional staff who can help you get started. We can also put you in contact with the local leaders in your area to discuss the benefits of joining with AFT.

Forming a union: First, your group needs to determine a core group of people who are committed to organizing workers to act collectively to better their conditions of employment. This working group or "organizing committee" will be responsible for building a structure for the organization and providing leadership for a larger group of activists who will talk with other colleagues and urge them to make a commitment to forming the union.

Affiliating with AFT: Affiliation is a two-way relationship. From AFT’s standpoint, affiliation is the process by which a group (an already established local union, an organizing committee, etc.) joins with the AFT. The AFT is a federation of "locals" that are affiliates. From the local perspective, AFT (both at the state and national office) as well as the AFL-CIO are your affiliates. AFT requires full affiliation. In other words, when your group affiliates with the AFT, you must affiliate with the AFT state federation, the national AFT, and the AFL-CIO at both the state and national levels. So affiliation is the process by which your group and AFT establish a relationship.

Working Toward Union Recognition: Unions gain recognition through different methods. One way is for the employer to voluntarily recognize a union after the union has demonstrated it has majority support through the process of collecting authorization cards. Voluntary recognition is often the only avenue available to academic employees in states that do not allow collective bargaining in higher education.

In states that do allow collective bargaining, the employer can still voluntarily recognize a union. However, more often, given many employers’ resistance to unions, the union will be required to hold an election conducted by either your state labor board if you are at a public institution, or by the National Labor Relations Board if you are at a private university. Here again, the election is triggered by a "card drive," an organizing effort in which a certain percentage of the employees sign a card authorizing your organization to represent them.

Finally, in some cases where the law does not allow collective bargaining, and the employer refuses to voluntarily recognize the union, collective action is required. Many of the states that now have laws enabling collective bargaining in higher education, have them because historically the employees acted collectively to demand recognition.

Determining Who Is in Your Unit: One issue you will need to address as you organize employees and work for recognition, is determining who is in your unit. A unit is a group of employees with common interests who are protected under the same contract. Only those employees who are considered to be prospective members of your unit will be allowed to vote in an election.

Chartering a Local: Chartering a local is the process of formally affiliating with AFT. Some groups that are preparing for a protracted effort to gain recognition will charter their local prior to recognition as a means of developing the group and gaining commitment to the local. More often, the local is officially chartered after recognition is achieved either through an election or voluntarily. The local then goes through the process of establishing a constitution and by-laws, electing officers and establishing dues. Then you begin working as a local within AFT. [back to top]

Collective bargaining is a formal process that gives you a voice in decisions that affect your job, your profession and higher education in general. It provides you and your colleagues with a special relationship to your employer in determining salary, benefits, hours and the conditions under which you work. More important, collective bargaining gives you a contract that puts these guarantees in writing, while also protecting you from unfair treatment.

Thousands of faculty, staff and graduate employees represented by AFT local affiliates have already used collective bargaining to win better and more equitable salary structures; to establish fair personnel policies regarding evaluations, promotion and leaves; and to institute orderly procedures to resolve grievances with supervisors.

As important, many faculty in AFT locals have used the bargaining process to gain a greater voice in areas such as shared governance; academic freedom; the reduction of full-time faculty positions; the exploitation of part-time, adjunct and other non-tenure faculty as well as graduate employees; distance learning; and intellectual property rights--important issues affecting the quality of research and the education we provide students and society in general.

Once you have elected a bargaining agent and set up your local operating structure, bargaining begins with the employer. Here is how it works:

Getting Your Concerns into a Proposal: If collective bargaining is truly to address the issues that affect you, your bargaining team will need to spend a lot of time listening to members’ concerns about their jobs and the ideas they have for improvement. The AFT and its local affiliates typically accomplish this through personal surveys, group meetings and individual discussions.

Once the bargaining team has heard from members, the team can compile the ideas and begin to set priorities for the bargaining process. Then, a skilled negotiator--together with a bargaining team made up of your colleagues--puts your priorities and concerns into the form of contract proposals. These proposals will be presented to the employer’s negotiating team.

With the AFT’s training and the leadership of a skilled negotiator, your bargaining team also will conduct research and develop a sound rationale to convince the board that your proposals are reasonable and worthy of acceptance.

Exchanging Proposals with the Employer: You and your colleagues will not be the only ones with bargaining proposals: Your employer will have its own ideas about what your salary should be, what hours you should work, how you should be evaluated and so on. For this reason, your bargaining agent and the employer begin by trading proposals with each other.

Each side prepares for future bargaining sessions by studying the other’s proposal. Both sides will look for areas of agreement and formulate strategy to seek a compromise where there is disagreement. Also during this time, the team keeps the members informed of progress made in bargaining sessions. This is a responsibility that the AFT and its local affiliates take seriously.

The Give and Take of Bargaining: Now, actual bargaining takes place. Your bargaining team and the board will make counterproposals. For example, your team might have proposed that you be given 10 days of sick leave per year. The employer may counter with five days. Your team must then decide whether it will: (1) stand by its original proposal, (2) accept the employer’s offer, or (3) make its own counterproposal of, say, seven days.

Throughout this process, both sides must negotiate in good faith. This means your bargaining team and the employer must try to reach agreements through compromise and cooperation. When no further progress can be made toward an agreement, however, and there are still undecided issues, an impasse is declared.

To overcome this obstacle, collective bargaining often provides for impasse resolution.

Laws on impasse resolution differ significantly from state to state. Sometimes impasse resolution takes place through mediation, a process in which an impartial third party works to help both sides reach an acceptable compromise. Arbitration ends a stalemate by allowing an impartial third party to hear both sides before reaching a decision. An arbitrator decides in favor of the employer’s or your bargaining team’s position, ruling either issue by issue--or on each side’s complete package of proposals. In some cases, the arbitrator has the freedom to fashion a compromise package.

Finally, another form of impasse resolution known as factfinding requires your bargaining team and the employer to present their respective proposals with supporting facts and evidence. The factfinder then determines which side’s facts and evidence have more merit.

Through these methods of impasse resolution, collective bargaining is able to proceed smoothly and without unnecessary conflict and to achieve the goal of a fair, mutually agreed-upon contract.

Ratifying Your Contract: As your bargaining team and the employer agree on issues, these items become part of a tentative agreement. Before this agreement can take effect, however, it must receive your membership’s approval--and typically the approval of a governing body on the employer’s side as well.

When your bargaining agent brings the proposed contract to you, it’s time to make an important decision. If you think the contract, taken as a whole, is unacceptable, you can vote to reject it. On the other hand, if the proposed contract is generally favorable, you can vote to ratify it.

By voting as a union to ratify the proposal, you and your colleagues give the document the full force of law. You now have a contract--a written explanation of your job responsibilities, salary and benefits, and conditions of your work.

Like a "Bill of Rights," your contract serves as a written guarantee of your rights and duties. Neither your bargaining team nor the employer can change any part of your contract without renegotiating.

If you believe that your contract rights have been violated or misinterpreted, your union can enforce your rights through a grievance procedure. Professional staff can assist you in receiving a successful and peaceful resolution to contract disputes.

With a collectively bargained contract, you will always know what is expected of you and what you can expect in return. Your contract will eliminate much of the uncertainty associated with salary, transfer, job security and other issues. It will also protect you from unfair treatment. [back to top]

The majority, but not all, of AFT higher education locals have collective bargaining rights. Some locals are in states that do not have laws enabling collective bargaining in higher education. Instead, these locals have various types of agreements that approximate collective bargaining. The most common is called "meet and confer." This is a process whereby the employee organization and employer come together jointly to discuss and agree upon issues predetermined to be "up for discussion." One significant difference from collective bargaining is the legal status of the agreement. Collective bargaining results in a legal contract, which binds the employer. In most meet-and-confer situations, the employer is not legally bound to the agreement, but rather by a sense of "fair play."

Other local arrangements do exist. However, our goal at AFT is to help as many organizations achieve collective bargaining as possible because this is by far the best way to protect academic employees. [back to top]

What is covered in your contract is up to your union--you decide what issues to bring to the collective bargaining table. Those issues will depend on the employees you represent, what type of institution you work at, and what is most pressing to your members at the time of bargaining. But this doesn't mean you have to start from scratch. AFT will help your local bargain, particularly your first contract, and we have hundreds of contracts to call on as examples of the types of issues you might cover and the various approaches you might take on those issues.

Some typical features of a higher education contract include the following:

• Grievance procedure. A mechanism that provides a fair and peaceful way of resolving disputes with principals and supervisors. This procedure also protects the integrity of your contract.

• Salary schedule. A chart detailing the salary increases that you can expect as you gain more experience and education. Rather than establishing a salary schedule, some contracts create salary minimums for different job categories and a process for promotion.

• Seniority rights. This provision of AFT contracts guarantees that decisions on layoffs, assignments, transfers, recalls and promotions will give special consideration to those who have worked the most years at an institution.

• Leaves. The number of days allowed for personal use, illness, bereavement, parental care, education, military, inservice, or other reasons.

• Insurance coverage. Health, life and other insurance plans that are fully or partially paid for by the employer.

• Fair evaluations. A provision that takes the unwanted surprise out of evaluations by informing members of your union when they will be evaluated, how they will be evaluated and what rights they have for challenging evaluations they consider to be unfair.

Beyond these typical features, AFT higher education contracts contain a variety of provisions that address different working conditions and professional issues. When you become part of the AFT and begin bargaining your first contract, we will provide you with a copy of the Higher Education Contract Analysis System (HECAS). This is a CD-ROM produced jointly with the National Education Association that contains more than 600 higher education contracts. It is searchable by topic, type of institution, constituency group, etc. HECAS, along with other support from the AFT, will help you address your members' concerns in your first and subsequent contracts.[back to top]

A common assumption is that faculty, staff and graduate employees in private institutions cannot organize a union. While the environment is in fact less favorable for private institutions than it is for many public institutions, AFT believes that the only way we will begin to change that environment is in fact by organizing, and we hope you will reach out to us at AFT higher education with your questions. As a first step, here is some background on that environment.

The rights of employees to unionize at private universities and colleges are determined by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (whereas the rights of employees at public institutions to unionize are determined at the state level). The NLRA gives employees the right to form a labor organization and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. This, unfortunately, is not the whole story.

Full-time Faculty and Yeshiva: In 1980, the Supreme Court decided in NLRB v. Yeshiva University that the full-time faculty at Yeshiva University, a private institution, were managers given their responsibilities and decision-making authority in the institution. Therefore, they were not protected by the NLRA. Since this ruling, which AFT has on numerous occasions publicly decried, organizing full-time faculty at private universities and colleges has virtually come to a standstill, because such efforts will inevitably entail going through what is now commonly referred to as a "Yeshiva hearing."

This, of course, assumes that the faculty group trying to achieve recognition is trying to do so through an NLRB election. Obviously, the other route is for full-time faculty to organize and achieve voluntary recognition as unions did prior to the NLRA. In fact, we are in the process in various states of putting together such campaigns to revitalize organizing private sector institutions. The AFT staff would be happy to talk more with you about these efforts and the particular situation of organizing full-time faculty at a private institution.

Part-time Faculty, Graduate Employees, and Staff: The Yeshiva decision only applied to full-time faculty. Certainly, other groups, particularly certain professional staff, might be held accountable to the definition of managerial employees outlined by the Yeshiva decision, but in general other groups in higher education have not run into comparable problems. In fact, efforts to organize graduate employees in private universities have recently been challenged. In those cases, the NLRB found that graduate employees did have the right to collective bargaining and consequently there has been significant organizing activity in this sector.

AFT firmly believes that academic employees at private institutions, like their colleagues in public institutions, should have the right to unionize and again encourages you to talk with our staff if you would like more information. [back to top]

Labor Law from State to State

Yes, labor laws that pertain to public institutions do vary from state to state. Public institutions are governed by the laws of their state and by the state labor board or commission. Consequently, some states have collective bargaining in higher education, and others do not. Within those states that have collective bargaining, some allow unions to negotiate agency fee, while others do not.

If you work at a private institution, regardless of what state you are in, your right to organize a union is governed by the National Labor Relations Act as outlined in the preceding section entitled Organizing in Private Universities and Colleges. [back to top]

Labor Law for Different Higher Education Professional Groups

Yes, labor law applies differently to various constituency groups within higher education. The laws pertaining to various groups of employees not only differ from state to state at public institutions, but the National Labor Relations Act also is applied differently from one group of employees to another. If you are unsure how your state laws or the NLRA applies to your group of employees, please contact the AFT higher education department. [back to top]

AFT and the Concept of Local Autonomy

Local autonomy has always been a core value for the AFT. The independence to make local decisions, with the help of state federations and regional offices, allows each local to develop its own unique agenda within the larger context of higher education unionism and the AFT’s national efforts. In addition, this independence requires locals to maintain a working and active membership to accomplish their goals, rather than relying on an outside service organization. Such activism creates stronger and more effective unions on the local level. [back to top]

AFT requires full affiliation with the state and national AFT as well as with the state and national AFL-CIO. So dues that your members pay will include each of those organizations as well as your own local. Those dues are set forth in the constitution and by-laws of each organization and vary from state to state and from local to local. You do not start paying dues to the AFT until you have become a recognized bargaining agent, or when you decide to charter a local. At that time you will establish your own local dues. AFT does have different dues categories for part-time workers and for those whose salary is below a specified amount, and locals have the ability to create such categories as well. [back to top]

By law, no money collected by AFT from members can be given to political candidates. So-called "paycheck protection" advocates would have the public believe that labor organizations use dues for this purpose; however, that is false. AFT does have a political action fund as do many of our locals, which we encourage members to contribute to so that we can have a voice in the political arena. But, that fund is separate from dues and is funded only by voluntary contributions from union members. Your basic dues are used to strengthen AFT at all levels through direct servicing from the state and national, through further organizing to increase the impact of unions in higher education, and for many other activities. [back to top]

Some groups or individuals within your group may wonder what the advantage of belonging to a national organization such as AFT is. Some of the benefits of joining a union are tangible products and services. Those include a host of "member benefits" including financial services, group insurance services, discounts on various goods and services, and other special offers--all of which can be seen on our AFT Plus Member Benefits page.

As an affiliate, your group would benefit from the support of the state and national federation. That support includes organizing help when you are forming your union, bargaining help on your contract, and research either for bargaining issues or other issues that the union is facing at the institution. The local also benefits from legislative work that takes place both at the state and national level, which helps to ensure that funding for your institution is maintained and that the political environment in which your local is operating is beneficial to faculty and staff.

Last, and most important, you get to belong to a union. This means, organizing more higher education professionals so we can work together to keep this country’s higher education focused where it should be and in the hands of those who are, after all, the foundation of this enterprise--faculty and staff. And ultimately union membership means being concerned about working people in general and recognizing that without the unified and concentrated voice of the union, we are all more vulnerable. [back to top]