ABSTRACT
The accelerated growth of campus academic collective bargaining in the 1970s occurred in response to the impact of the accelerated growth in enrollments and consequent demands for faculty and academic staff at that time. For faculty, the long-term erosion has been less evident in the inflation adjusted salaries of those fortunate enough to hold full-time tenure-track positions than in the dramatic decline in the proportion of such positions and the accelerated growth of full-time non-tenure-track, part-time and graduate assistant positions. Collective bargaining can serve as a problem-solving response. The tradition of shared governance, for example, offers an established mechanism to explore controversial issues through joint committees of academic administrators and faculty as well as other academic staff. A well-known outcome of union certification is the sudden re-set of the existing employer–employee relationship.
