“The result, 28 to 0, was tallied June 14 at the State Employment Relations Board. The new union will include more than 30 librarians,” states a release from FAM.
Tenured and tenure-track Miami University faculty and longer-term contract faculty, including teaching professors, clinical faculty and lecturers, also unionized overwhelmingly with FAM.
“We will soon be participating meaningfully in important decisions that affect our ability to serve our students,” said web services librarian Ken Irwin.
It has taken more than a year for FAM organizers to organize librarians, the organization said Wednesday.
“In conversations with colleagues about their working conditions, librarians named a number of key concerns — including having faculty responsibilities without faculty rights or title, a lack of transparency in shared governance and promotions, lagging compensation, and workload — as threats to Miami’s educational mission,” states FAM.
“As we face legislative threats to academic freedom and labor rights, higher ed unions are more important than ever. We can work in coalition with other unions to build power to protect freedom of research and learning,” said Cathy Wagner, a professor in the English department.
FAM now consists of nearly 850 unionized faculty, including FAM-Librarians. Organizers say they want to use collective bargaining to promote more stable employment and strengthen the university’s educational mission.
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