EVENTS THAT LED TO THE DIRECTION OF AN ELECTION ON WHETHER PART-TIME FACULTY SHOULD BE REPRESENTED BY LOCAL 500 SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION (printer-friendly version)(printer-friendly version (PDF))

May 14, 2004

The Service Employees first filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on March 8, 2004, seeking to represent part-time and regular part-time faculty. The University worked with the NLRB to determine whether the union had the required showing of support for the proposed unit in order to hold an election. Following a review of the relevant data, the NLRB informed the union that it would dismiss the petition because the petition did not have the support of at least 30 percent of the part-time faculty, as required by federal labor law. Instead, the union withdrew that petition and filed a second petition that purported to clarify the unit. The NLRB again agreed and determined that despite the union’s efforts, there was not a sufficient showing of interest in the University community to support the petition for an election under NLRB guidelines. The union withdrew its petition for the second time.

The NLRB’s decision on the first two petitions was based on the fact that University records demonstrated that there are in excess of 1,500 part-time faculty employed at the University during an academic year, contrary to the union’s assertion that there are only approximately 1,100.** Despite the union’s continued insistence that the University was “padding” the list and putting up “roadblocks” to deny part-time faculty the right to vote, the University was in fact attempting to ensure that every part-time faculty member would be given an opportunity to vote, based on the union’s own description of the unit it proposed to represent, in the event the NLRB directed an election.

On April 19, 2004, the Service Employees filed a third petition. Although the union did not obtain any more support this time around, their technical change to the petition met the NLRB’s jurisdictional requirement to hold an election. While the union still does not have a majority of the part-time faculty’s support of its petition for an election, the University took the position that it was in the best interests of all part-time faculty and the University to hold an election in order to put this question to rest. Accordingly, the University agreed to meet with the Service Employees at the NLRB Regional Director’s office in Baltimore on April 28, 2004. At the meeting, the University and the Service Employees reached an agreement, which has been approved by the NLRB, that there will be an election to determine whether or not the Service Employees should be permitted to represent the University’s part-time faculty as its exclusive agent.

** The Service Employees’ petitions claimed that there were approximately 1,000 part-time faculty who would be in the collective bargaining unit if the union won an election. It appears that the Service Employees based this number on data maintained on the University’s Office of Institutional Research Web site, which states that during the Fall 2002 semester, GW employed 1,115 part-time faculty. The Service Employees’ reliance on that figure is misleading: the data is not current (Fall 2002 semester only), and it does not encompass the unit the Service Employees indicated in its first two petitions that it hoped to represent -- part-time and regular part-time faculty who were employed by GW in either the Fall 2003 semester, the Spring 2004 semester, or both.