Michigan State University's tenure-system faculty say school is stonewalling union

EAST LANSING ― Nearly eight months after seeking union recognition, tenure-system faculty say Michigan State University officials still have not recognized their bargaining unit.

Some faculty members say the university is purposefully stonewalling their unionizing efforts by refusing to include librarians, and canceling arbitration talks on the issue.

"They don't care what faculty think," said Anna Pegler-Gordon, who is a member of the union's organizing committee and a tenured professor in the school's James Madison College. "We know this, that's why we're unionizing."

In November 2023, union organizers said 54% of tenured and tenure-system faculty signed cards in favor of the union. College Factual , a website that tracks information about universities, says there are about 1,700 tenured and tenure-system faculty at MSU.

Union organizers expected to receive official university counts of the number of tenure-system faculty to check their percentage in favor and against, and begin the negotiation process. But that didn't happen, said NiCole Buchanan, a tenured professor of psychology at MSU.

"We're still having the most basic conversations," she said.

Representatives from the university did not immediately provide comment.

Buchanan said administrators are refusing to recognize the union because they don't think librarians should be included. Buchanan and the other union organizers disagree, because librarians are considered teaching positions and are included in the faculty handbook.

"(Whether librarians are included) is only a legitimate concern on the university’s end if they want to stall or delay the union," Buchanan said. "It's not legitimate concerns if they’re trying to decide who should be involved, because according to the university's own rules, librarians are faculty members."

Pegler-Gordon said union organizers and the university had set up arbitration meetings, but administrators canceled them and asked to reschedule, which breaks the rules of a neutrality agreement approved by the Board of Trustees in December 2021.

According to the neutrality agreement, both parties involved in the negotiation process must agree to an extension of the arbitration meeting dates. Faculty did not agree to cancel the June 26 arbitration session, Pegler-Gordon said, and are concerned about the university trying to delay conversations about including librarians until Aug. 23.

"That's the Friday before school starts," she said. "I can't imagine a worse time for professors to be expected to deal with arbitration."

Tenure-system faculty are one of the last groups on MSU's campus to gain approval for a union. Ten unions were created before the board's neutrality agreement, and one after it was created, but Pegler-Gordon said she hasn't seen much of a difference in the way administration treated the prior groups trying to unionize and this one.

Buchanan and Pegler-Gordan said tenure-system faculty are not forming a union for their benefit, but for the university's and students'.

"If we were able to unionize, that would mean nearly every employee on campus could have a union representing them," Buchanan said. "There's a lot more power in the collective. But large institutions don't want to give up their sole power and work within a shared governance model... If we could, I think that could have prevented a lot of scandals in the university's recent history."

Contact Sarah Atwood at satwood@lsj.com, or follow her on X @sarahmatwood .

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Michigan State University's tenure-system faculty say school is stonewalling union