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Reorganizing Higher Education in the United States and Canada

The Erosion of Tenure and the Unionization of Contingent Faculty

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, ddobbie{at}umich.edu

Ian Robinson

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, eian{at}umich.edu

Every year in Canada and the U.S., the share of higher education faculty who teach off the tenure track grows. One might expect that faculty unionization would limit this process, but the data examined here indicate that this is not so. While Canadian universities are significantly more unionized than their U.S. counterparts, they rely at least as heavily on contingent faculty. Similarly, U.S. states with high levels of unionization do not exhibit lower levels of casualization. Union strategies that institutionalize divisions between tenure-track and non-tenure-track, and/or between part-time and full-time faculty, probably play a role in this outcome. They can and should also play a pivotal role in reversing these trends if they develop the political will to do so.

Key Words: unions • union density • tenure • job security • part-time • contingent labor

This version was published on June 1, 2008

Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2, 117-140 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0160449X07301241


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