WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTORS FORM UNION,
PREPARE TO FILE WITH LABOR BOARD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2009

WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
INSTRUCTORS FORM UNION,
PREPARE TO FILE WITH LABOR BOARD

Kalamazoo, MI -- Part-time faculty at Western Michigan University have formed a union and plan to file for a representation election with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC). The newly formed union will negotiate salary increases, improved working conditions and employment security provisions with the WMU administration. Union members will file a representation petition and membership cards with MERC on Friday, February 13, 2009.

The union formed after many meetings and individual discussions among part-time instructors at the Kalamazoo campus and is called the Professional Instructors Organization (PIO).

"A change in our working conditions is long overdue," said Janet Heller, an instructor teaching in both the English Department and the Gender and Women's Studies Program. "A union will give us a voice and allow us the opportunity to address the concerns that are important to non-tenure-track instructors."

Part-time instructors teach hundreds of undergraduate and some graduate courses at WMU as well as internet-based and off-site instruction. In some cases part-time instructors' work hours exceed the university's requirements for "full-time" employment, but instructors receive significantly lower salaries.

"Salary and job security are among the big issues for many part-time instructors," said Karl Schrock, an adjunct instructor in the School of Music. "As educators we are committed to our students and this university, yet we are often left to struggle with stagnant wages, few resources, and undue hardships created by the constant uncertainty of future appointments." Part-time instructors at WMU are employed on a semester-by-semester basis, although many of them have taught at the university for 10, 20, and even 30 years.

The PIO is happy to join the ranks of other non-tenure-track employee unions in Michigan. Unions at the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University and Wayne State University have organized in recent years. On these and other union campuses, instructors have bargained contracts that contain scheduled salary increases and improved job security, among other gains.
Like the employee unions at U of M, MSU, and Wayne State, the PIO is affiliated with the AFT Michigan, the state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO.

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