An important update on the RTPC faculty unionization process

Dear Colleagues,

We are grateful for your engagement with the RTPC faculty unionization process over the last two months. The deadline for mailing in ballots has now passed, and vote counting will begin tomorrow. Regardless of how you voted, the substantive issues that have been raised will be important for us to continue working on as a community going forward.

This election has presented not just important substantive issues but important legal issues as well. This is to be expected with a proposed bargaining unit – covering more than 2,700 RTPC full-time, part-time, and adjunct faculty across hundreds of disciplines within 22 schools and the USC Libraries – of unprecedented size and internal differentiation, not to mention unresolved questions about whether the proposed unit is consistent with shared governance and established law.

It is important to definitively resolve these legal issues sooner rather than later, so they do not create a continuing cloud of uncertainty over whatever future directions this matter takes. For this reason, the University has asked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) – in the event that a majority of ballots support representation by the United Auto Workers – to quickly review the validity of this result as the first step toward obtaining much-needed legal clarity over these issues.

In the meantime, we will communicate the outcome of the vote as soon as all ballots have been counted and verified and at that time will provide information on next steps.

We are grateful to our faculty for all you do for the university and our students and for your demonstrated commitment to shared governance.

Sincerely,