Faculty collective bargaining in Canada: Background, development and impact

Conclusion

The Kemerer-Baldridge study acknowledges that in the U.S. faculty unions have negotiated procedural protection in tenure and promotions, less arbitrariness in administrative decisions, more job security, and greater economic security in general. The authors also point out that these negotiated advantages accrue to non-unit faculty as well. In my view those conclusions apply with equal force in Canada.

As noted in the introduction to this section, we still lack sufficient data to do more than generalize from impressionistic accounts. Nevertheless I feel safe in saying that, in a very short period of time, collective bargaining has enhanced true professionalism and real collegiality on Canadian campuses by moving Canadian academics from their knees (suitable no doubt for supplication) to their feet; by giving them legally enforceable job security without which the notion of academic freedom had too hollow a ring; by giving them a real and not a mythical voice in university governance; and by doing all of this and more without creating excessive bureaucracies, industrial models, unconscionable power blocks, or strangulation by legalistic formality. In the course of doing so, Canadian faculty engaged in collective bargaining have developed innovative approaches in a number of key areas, approaches which may yet have significant impact in both public and private sector bargaining. Certainly, faculty collective bargaining has gone a long way in developing a model for professional unionism in Canada.