The NLRB updated its rules for determining when adjuncts and non-tenure faculty at universities can join a union. Faculty members can only join a union if their school has a committee that exercises ‘effective control’ over school policies and curricula that the non-tenure faculty are unable to join. If a school does not have this sort of committee, then said faculty members are considered management employees with a reasonable voice in their daily operations and thus not eligible to unionize.
In the case of non-tenure track faculty at Elon University, the Board ruled in favor of the union’s attempt to organize, stating that the university did not meet “its burden” to prove that “non-tenure faculty are structurally included in the university’s faculty bodies.”
The NLRB also ruled this month that graduate nurses are professionals and eligible for a union vote.
