Chatham University’s faculty organizing committee has withdrawn from continuing National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] hearings with the school’s administration, effectively stopping unionization efforts, for now.
The recent presidential election results are mostly to blame for the decision, organizers said in a statement issued by Chatham Faculty United on Wednesday. With former President Donald Trump heading back to the Oval Office in January, they are worried about the NLRB siding against organizers at higher education institutions.
Since 2021, there have been major union wins at campuses across the country. Just last week, University of Pittsburgh graduate students voted overwhelmingly in favor of representation by the United Steelworkers of America. Chatham faculty organizers and their American Federation of Teachers sponsors didn’t want an unfavorable ruling to set a precedent that could impact other efforts.
“This is a strategic legal decision to protect our future as a union and the future unionization efforts of faculty at other institutions,” according to Chatham Faculty United’s statement. “The facts in our situation have not changed and we do not concede the case.”
Following a stalled effort in 2016, faculty unionization efforts at Chatham were renewed last August in the wake of a reorganization process at the university driven by a reported operating budget deficit in the realm of $12 million. The process saw staff positions cut, salaries reduced, retirement benefits rolled back and health care insurance options limited.
Support for union representation among faculty grew steadily from then — 80% of tenured and tenure-track faculty signed cards in support of the drive, according to organizers. Local officials, including Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, also backed the bid, with Gainey telling Public Source earlier this year that a union would be “for the best interests of not only the school but the city.”
Jennie Sweet-Cushman, a political science professor and organizer at Chatham, said she thought a union would align with the “progressive” values of the university. But, now, she feels disoriented, describing a sense of “deep disrespect” for the work of faculty members on the part of administrators.
A spokesperson for the university did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In an email sent to faculty, staff and students on Nov. 26, President Rhonda Phillips cast the AFT’s decision to withdraw as an opportunity for campus-wide unity.
“This development now creates a welcome opportunity for us all to work together through the university’s shared governance system for the betterment of Chatham’s mission, students, and employees,” Phillips wrote in the email.
Last November, Chatham spokesman Bill Campbell said that the university “has had positive working relationships with existing unions representing employee groups on campus for many years.” These groups included police, security and housekeeping.
“Contentious” is how Sweet-Cushman described the relationship between faculty members and the university’s leadership team — and not only as it relates to the union. However, she does feel the university’s refusal to collaborate with unionization efforts left organizers’ hands tied.
“There was no other option for us, so there’s some sadness around that … There’s also a sense of frustration because it didn’t have to be this way.”
A newsletter written by organizers before the AFT decision disputes Phillips’s depiction of shared governance, pointing to claims that faculty with grants lacked the authority to even “order Post-it notes without (multiple) permissions.”
Historically, it has been difficult for tenured and tenure-track faculty at private, non-profit universities to gain union representation. A 1980 Supreme Court decision asserted that tenure-track faculty at these institutions were managerial employees lacking collective bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Some organizing efforts, including those by faculty at Point Park University, have successfully bypassed this.
In the current organizing boom on U.S. campuses, 71.5% of new faculty unions formed between 2021 and 2023 were for non-tenure track faculty members only.
Faculty organizers at Chatham said one reason the hearings spanned months was because the university used the 1980 decision to argue that faculty are a part of the school’s decision-making body. That argument required extensive testimony from faculty members.
Despite the withdrawal, Sweet-Cushman said this isn’t the end of Chatham Faculty United — just a setback.
To ease some students’ disappointment at the announcement, associate history professor and organizer Lou Martin offered this: “Chatham Faculty United is going to continue to be an organization advocating for the faculty and for a better Chatham for a very long time.”
Maddy Franklin reports on higher ed for Pittsburgh’s Public Source, in partnership with Open Campus, and can be reached at madison@publicsource.org.
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