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Vanderbilt University must count all ballots from a June election in which non-tenure-track faculty members in the College of Arts & Sciences voted to form a union affiliated with Service Employees International Union, a hearing officer from the National Labor Relations Board said. The recent decision could still be appealed by Vanderbilt and must be approved by the NLRB regional director, but non-tenure-track professors in the college described it as bringing them one step closer to collective bargaining.
Some 193 instructors were eligible to vote in the election, with 55 voting for a union and 40 opposed. The university challenged the validity of 28 votes, but NLRB ended up counting 27 of those.
“We call on the administration to accept the NLRB hearing officer’s decision and begin negotiating with us in good faith,” Heraldo Falconi, a senior lecturer in Spanish, said in a statement. “We have lawfully completed the steps required for union certification, and it's time to get started negotiating a clear set of policies and guidelines that's consistent for all non-tenure-track employees.”
The university said in a separate statement that it is evaluating the NLRB hearing officer’s report “and in the process of determining next steps at this time. We continue to approach this process in good faith and with the well-being of the Vanderbilt community and its faculty at the forefront.”
