What Will It Mean to Have a Faculty Union at Miami?

Colleagues, it’s time to vote! 

What will it mean to have a faculty union at Miami?

A seat at the decision-making table. Without a union, your employer can continue to make unilateral decisions about our working lives. Together, you and your colleagues can set your own priorities and negotiate binding agreements. It’s the difference between speaking and being heard.  

Uniting against threats to higher education. Our educational mission is in danger due to attacks on academic freedom; racist suppression of DEI efforts; shrinking public funding; corporatization; and more. Unions can organize faculty in great numbers within and across institutions to fight these trends — at Miami, in Ohio, and across the country. 

Strong support for transformative diversity and equity. FAM is following in the footsteps of other academic unions that are working to recognize diversity-related service, protect against bias in teaching evaluations, create equitable salary review processes, and more. Miami AAUP has had an explicit commitment to antiracism and worker equity for many years, supporting DEI efforts on campus and fighting anti-CRT legislation. As Department of Labor data shows, unions offer an unparalleled pathway for achieving equity. 

Better salaries and benefits. Through a union — with increased access to financial information — you and your colleagues can negotiate raises and benefits Miami can afford and you deserve. The evidence is overwhelming that unions have a positive impact on worker compensation. Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that unions raise wages across industries. In 2021, union workers in education occupations made an average 24% per week more than their non-union counterparts—far outstripping the cost of dues.  

Inclusive and transparent union governance. Over the last  year, a FAM committee representing a broad range of disciplinary areas, faculty categories and demographics has been working to draft our constitution and bylaws. They designed equitable governance and leadership structures to ensure that faculty from all divisions, as well as underrepresented colleagues, participate powerfully in union decision-making. Similarly, bargaining will be undertaken by elected members of the faculty from across campus. Ater the election, all faculty have the opportunity to discuss and vote on our constitution & bylaws and select the negotiating team. This is your union! 

Building a pathway to unionization for visiting faculty and librarians. Although Miami administration succeeded in excluding our colleagues from the current unit, FAM is actively supporting them as they organize their own units. These units will remain part of FAM and part of FAM decision-making. We are one union.  

Benefits to our community. Anti-union rhetoric has contributed to a long trend of worker disempowerment in the US that has increased precarity and flattened real wages across industries (including higher education). But the tide is  turning—to the benefit of not only Miami faculty, but the entire community. 71% of Americans support unionization, and new union filings are up by 57%. Increased density of unionized workers in a community have demonstrably positive effects on local wages, living standards, and democratic rights.

Need more information? Read this FAQ on unionization and find out why your colleagues are voting yes.

If you haven’t voted yet, do it now! Be part of this hard-won and transformational moment at Miami.
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Happy voting!
FAM Organizing Committee