Skidmore Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Vote to Unionize

Skidmore Faculty Forward/SEIU Wins Union Election to Represent College’s

Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

“These are victories for the whole Skidmore community–faculty, staff, and students. Collective bargaining rights will allow us to secure the support that we need to do the jobs that we have–as non-tenure-track teachers and scholars,” she said. “We’re excited to get to the bargaining table right away to address some of the underlying needs that led us to organize–issues around pay, precarity, and a voice on campus.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY – This afternoon, in two elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a majority of 215 eligible full-time and part-time non-tenure-track faculty, librarians, and accompanists voted to unionize and join with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 200United. In the full-time bargaining unit, 65% voted to unionize. In the part-time bargaining unit, 67% voted to unionize.

Ruth McAdams, Teaching Professor of English and a Skidmore Faculty Forward organizing committee member, celebrated the results. “These are victories for the whole Skidmore community–faculty, staff, and students. Collective bargaining rights will allow us to secure the support that we need to do the jobs that we have–as non-tenure-track teachers and scholars,” she said. “We’re excited to get to the bargaining table right away to address some of the underlying needs that led us to organize–issues around pay, precarity, and a voice on campus.”

Skidmore College relies heavily on contingent faculty labor. Including part-time faculty, the approximately 215 non-tenure-track faculty make up nearly half of the total faculty. They work with little to no job security, with a vast majority working on terminal contracts with no guarantee of reappointment for the following semester or academic year, despite being an integral part of Skidmore’s curricular needs. Full-time, non-tenure-track faculty make significantly less than their tenure track and tenured colleagues, despite teaching similar course loads and performing similar service to the college. Part-time, adjunct faculty are not paid a living wage consistent with the cost of living in Saratoga Springs and the greater Capital Region.

In response to these working conditions, organizing efforts began in 2018, following in the footsteps of other faculty at private colleges and universities across New York that joined SEIU Local 200United in recent years. In 2014, 160 part-time and full-time contingent faculty at Siena College voted overwhelmingly to unionize. In 2017, 800 adjunct and full-time, non-tenure-track faculty at Fordham University voted 16-to-1 to unionize and, in their first agreement ratified the next year, saw significant increases in pay and job security.

Skidmore Faculty Forward/SEIU went public with their organizing drive earlier this year in May. Initially, the Skidmore administration threatened to challenge the eligibility of full-time faculty to organize but ultimately the administration dropped those objections and agreed to a mail-in ballot election. Ballots were sent out on Monday, September 12 and eligible faculty had two weeks to return their ballots. 83% full-time non-tenure-track faculty and 65% part-time adjunct faculty voted in the election.

Pete Murray, Teaching Professor of Philosophy and member of the Skidmore Faculty Forward Organizing Committee, had this to add: "We are so grateful for the strong and continued support of the Skidmore and Saratoga community: students, tenure-track faculty, staff, and local activists and government officials. As we move now to the bargaining table, it is with the knowledge that our whole community stands with us as we move forward together."

Next, Skidmore Faculty Forward will survey their members to identify and determine bargaining priorities, elect a negotiating committee, and prepare for first contract negotiations with the Skidmore College administration.

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Faculty Forward is a national project of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and SEIU Local 200United in New York and Vermont. Its over 3,000 adjunct and non-tenure eligible professors teach at 10 colleges and universities, including Fordham University in the Bronx, Siena College in Loudonville, New York, and Ithaca College. 14,000 SEIU Local 200United members work across the federal, public, and private sectors, including over 6,000 workers inside and outside the classroom at more than 30 colleges and

universities.