Dive Brief:
- A National Labor Relations Board ruling against Pacific Lutheran University could make unionization efforts easier for faculty at private higher education institutions.
- The ruling said that Pacific Lutheran couldn’t claim that its full-time non-tenure-track faculty members were management and not entitled to collective bargaining.
- The tools suggested by the NLRB for deciding whether faculty members are managerial could also be used to show that even tenure-track professors at private schools are entitled to unionize, Inside Higher Ed reports.
Dive Insight:
The labor relations board’s ruling will also make it harder for religious colleges to claim exemptions from unionization efforts. The NLRB said that a faculty unionization exemption could be claimed on religious grounds only if the faculty members are performing religious functions. On the issue of faculty managerial roles, the board said that to determine whether a faculty member has managerial authority, the faculty control of academic programs, enrollment management policies, finances, academic policies, and personnel policies and decisions has to be examined.