The contingent faculty at Barnard College have voted overwhelmingly to unionize. Barnard is a women’s college, and women also make up more than 60 percent of the faculty. So, a pretty good choice, then, considering that union women earn, on average, 13 percent more than their non-union counterparts.
The contingent faculty members—anyone who isn’t tenured or eligible for tenure—first filed a petition in June with the National Labor Relations Board, saying they wished to join the United Auto Workers Local 2110, the union the clerical workers and support staff at Barnard, Columbia and the Teachers College have all belonged to for decades. (Full disclosure: I was previously a union member represented by Local 2110 at the Village Voice.)
After a negotiation with Barnard’s administration over who would be eligible for the union, the union ran a mail ballot election between September 14 and October 1st. The union was endorsed by actress Cythia Nixon, a Barnard alumna:
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