The fears of resource standardization and the creation of an adversarial workplace climate: The struggle to organize a faculty union at Illinois State University

Abstract

In this article, I investigate the effect that the communication of an anti-union message delivered by faculty union opponents and the university administration had on a recent faculty union organizing drive at Illinois State University. Specifically, I argue that the Illinois State University Faculty Association's (ISUFA) certification election loss was due to the union opponents' effective communication of a message that having a faculty union and collective bargaining representation would impose more costs than benefits through the standardization of college and departmental resources across the university and by creating an adversarial climate between the administration and faculty members. Conversely, the union was ineffective in combating these two arguments by convincing faculty of the overriding benefits of unionization. The ISUFA failed to build a sufficient “community of interest” (or solidarity) among the faculty by focusing on a single issue or a set of related issues that extended to university-wide issues as a whole or to external issues that confronted the faculty as a profession. The article concludes with lessons learned from the campaign.