Staff find their union voice

Until last year, professional and technical staff working in Washington state two-year and technical colleges did not have the right to bargain, even though their fellow faculty were unionized. That changed when the state Legislature passed a bill, effective July 2007, to allow bargaining for some 1,600 nonteaching administrative staff working at 19 colleges. And on Oct. 24, the 33 professional staff at Yakima Valley Community College were the first to go union, in a 27-0 vote counted by the state Public Employment Relations Board. Their union of choice was AFT Washington, which represents full- and part-time faculty in most of the two-year colleges in the state. "We looked at another union," says Marney Spurgin, who works in Technology Services at Yakima, "but by far AFT was most respected."

With the vote at Yakima, it's "one down, 19 to go," says Sandra Schroeder, AFT Washington president and an AFT vice president. "It signifies for us that this unrecognized group of people in higher education wants to have a voice in decision-making in the institutions."