Information on RTPC faculty unionization election next steps

Dear Colleagues,

We write to update you regarding a decision last week by the local office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  After deliberating for over a year, the local office decided that a secret ballot election can proceed to determine whether the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (also known as United Auto Workers or UAW) will act as the union for full-time, part-time, and adjunct RTPC faculty at USC, excluding part-time and adjunct faculty in the School of Cinematic Arts and excluding all faculty in the Keck School of Medicine and excluding all faculty employed by the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The election also excludes all tenured and tenure-track, visiting or emeriti faculty from all schools.

It is important to understand that this is just one step in a process that necessarily takes time and warrants very careful consideration:

• The decision from the NLRB ordered that the election be conducted for two consecutive dates during the week of April 13 or April 20, 2026, with one polling location on each campus (UPC and HSC).  Please note that the University had requested that voters be permitted to vote either in-person or by mail to facilitate participation by all.  Unfortunately, the local office of the NLRB determined that the election should be in-person only. We do not yet know the specific dates within this window that the election will occur or locations of the election, but that information will be forthcoming.
• The University is compelled by law to provide a voter list to the NLRB and to the union tomorrow.  For those eligible to vote, this list must contain a number of pieces of information, including contact information like home addresses, available personal email addresses, and available home and personal cell telephone numbers. If you are contacted by the union, you have no obligation to respond, and you are permitted to make it known that you do not wish to be contacted.
• The election will present a number of practical and legal issues requiring careful consideration – in particular, whether unionization is the best way to address issues of concern or whether existing mechanisms are effective. Another issue is whether the very different constituencies proposed to be represented by the union in a single unit, including more than 2,900 faculty — full-time, part-time, and adjunct — who reside across 22 schools and the Libraries, working in different departments and divisions, with distinct areas of scholarship, job functions, and work can be effectively represented that way.
• In addition, the local office’s decision appears inconsistent with longstanding precedent regarding the managerial and supervisory roles of faculty who help guide the university through shared governance. 

More information
We will continue to update you as things progress. Please keep sending any questions you have to uscprovost@usc.edu. More information will be made available and posted on the following website: https://www.provost.usc.edu/unionization/

Above all, we want to express our sincere appreciation for everything you do for our students and for one another. It is an honor to work alongside such generous colleagues who are truly dedicated to supporting their peers and this university. We firmly believe that, through collaboration and open dialogue, there is nothing we cannot achieve together.

Sincerely,