It was October 1972, and it was MSU’s first attempt to unionise (Ladd and Lipset 1973). Across the US, multiple educational institutions had unionised recently — 121 four-year colleges and 147 two-year institutions. Sadly, MSU was not to be one of them — the “no agent” (opposed to a union) vote by the faculty was 62%. For those who are interested, Coté (1973) provides a short but clear account of what happened. A happy President Wharton said that much remained to be done on salaries and other matters. Of course, little has changed in the ensuing years. MSU retains the dubious distinction of having faculty salaries that are close to the bottom of the Big-10.
A second and third unionisation efforts happened, but there is no clear documented information about them that I could find. However, this audio interview with Dr. Robert F. Banks (associate provost and associate vice president for academic human resources at MSU) by John Revitte (MSU professor of Labor and Industrial Relations) from 2008 suggests that there were three unionisation efforts (the early 70s effort discussed above, another late 70s effort, and an early 80s effort). Note, Banks’ numbers related to the votes were ball-park estimates. The audio recording is linked to at the bottom of the above page — the discussion of MSU unionisation efforts is between the time-stamps 22:00-55:20 in the recording. The discussion is worth listening to to understand the nuances of the unionisation effort in the 80s, related to discussions around the bargaining unit composition, the involvement of Faculty Affairs/Academic Governance, the general faculty opinion,…By the way, these oral histories are absolutely great, if you have the time.
The march of history was clearly towards unionisation, but it took another 40 odd years to get across that initial barrier of recognition. A fourth unionisation effort started towards the end of 2018/beginning of 2019. And after 6 or so years, today, on September 8, 2025, I am proud to say MSU’s Union of Tenure System Faculty (UTSF) was recognised through a card-check process. We were able to show authorisation cards from more than 50% of the regular faculty at MSU (tenure system faculty and librarians).1 This is a momentous occasion and should be celebrated by any one who cares about labour rights.
Interestingly, despite the almost exactly 53 year time-gap from the first unionisation effort, little has changed in the administration’s tactics. In 1972, then President Clifton R. Wharton Jr. undercut the unionisation efforts by openly violating the position of neutrality that he originally committed to. In similar fashion, MSU in recent years openly violated a neutrality agreement by the Board of Trustees, and UTSF was forced to file an unfair labour practice claim with Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC). Furthermore, throughout the negotiation and arbitration process, the university was nothing if not unhelpful till the very end (and that’s being charitable to them), as any respectable corporate entity should be in matters related to labour rights. Beyond that, throughout the process MSU administration showed itself to be embarrassingly ill-prepared for negotiations. The depth of how poor their administrative records on faculty were was truly shocking.
Why unionise at all? Through the various scandals over the last couple of decades, MSU has shown itself to be a truly corporate organisation following the standard, yet cynical, modern management dogma of Every crisis is an opportunity. The university seems to be in a perennial state of financial emergency. One wonders why on earth these higher administration folks earn so much if the university is always doing so poorly financially, despite the ever increasing endowments?
Whether it was the Nassar scandal that resulted in settlements totalling nearly $900 million, or the COVID pandemic, MSU never wasted a good crisis. There was a big cover up of the Nassar abuse, yet it was MSU faculty and staff who paid the price. Very few in higher administration paid any price. Heck, getting a golden parachute is hardly punishment. But, departments suffered multiple consecutive years of budget cuts even when the stock market was doing well, and MSU investments increased. During the COVID pandemic, despite the initial worry, MSU investments increased by billions (I recently heard an estimate of $2 billion!!). MSU decided that the best course of action was to cut department budgets, faculty salary and retirements. Most recently, due to cuts to federal grants (and indirect costs for such grants) and increasing health care costs, MSU decided a further 9% cuts to be implemented in 2 years. Why were the health care projections so bad? If that is in fact the case, which administrative unit is responsible for them and why has there been absolutely no discussion or plan to improve the performance of that unit? Instead, the talk is of cutting college/department/programme budgets that have little to do with this fiasco, as with all the other fiascos. This is the modern university’s version of Socialize the Costs and Privatize the Profits.
The last decade has seen massive cuts in faculty salaries, retirement benefits, and department budgets (there has also been serious worry about decreasing faculty freedom and administrative interference, but I will leave that for a later post). You would think this was a poor economy and investments were tanking, but that is not the case. What use is a healthy endowment if it can’t used when the money is needed? The oft-repeated claim is that such endowments are linked to specific projects. But, without making the endowment information explicit and transparent, why should anyone believe that? Are there really no endowments that come with no strings attached? You would think that the rainy day fund was totally depleted; but nope, it’s quite healthy! What use is a rainy day fund if it is not to be used on a rainy day? Why on earth are we saving money? What is the end goal here?
Most recently, the MSU president talked about “shared sacrifice” and mentioned that the President’s office will also take a 9% cut like everyone else. That sounds great, but apparently they forgot to mention the massive increase in their budgets in previous years. From what I can see from this year’s budget document, the President’s office operating budget increased from $1,938,955 in ’23-’24 to $3,111,428 in ’24-’25, a 60.5% increase in one year, as can be seen below.2 There is a big difference in cutting 9% when you have had massive increases in budgets in previous years, and cutting 9% when you are already stripped to the bone – cutting fat off a fattened pig is quite easy. In fact, almost every upper administration budget increased by a sizeable amount. Compare that to the cuts that the departments, colleges, and faculty have been receiving. Shared sacrifice, indeed! Fiscal belt tightening seems to be largely for the idiots.
Yes, there are problems with financing. Yes, state appropriations have decreased consistently. But it is far from clear that we need drastic austerity measures. There are many sensible alternatives. Sadly, MSU has spent $2 million and sought budget advice from a fancy consulting firm, McKinsey and Company. As far as I can see from their recommendations, the firm has no understanding of the mission of a university or how to balance university budgets in a sensible fashion. In fact, when accountants who deeply understand university systems have looked at similar university budget issues in recent times, it’s been noted that the claimed financial crisis is largely manufactured or a result of higher administration bloat, and not department/college bloat. For example, see Dr. Howard Bunsis’s (Professor of Accounting, Eastern Michigan University) careful analysis of Rutgers University’s budget. Some important suggested solutions on slide 65 of his presentation are “Reduce upper-level management and athletic spending” and “Use reserves – this situation is EXACTLY what reserves are designed to be used for”. Of course, that’s sensible. It’s time to fight back for sense! We are an educational institution, and we should run based on rational structures, and not those that see increased endowments as a goal in and of themselves, perhaps to embellish their own CVs.
A fundamental problem in the past however many years has been that there hasn’t been a rational and meaningful voice on behalf of the faculty. Sadly, the Faculty Senate is merely advisory, and is generally ignored by the administration. And now, the faculty have arrived at a pivotal crossroad. As Coté (1973) (p. 30) documented, in the words of the Walter Adams, who was MSU faculty and the AAUP national president during the very first unionisation effort in the 1970’s, “Let there be a couple of bad years’ retrenchment by the legislature or a cause célèbre and something will eventually happen down was road. The faculty’s going to say, What’s going on here? We’ve been had!”. Maybe, it took 50 years more than it should have, but the faculty are here, and we stand united to stop this madness. We are still a ways away from the ratification of a contract, but today was an important first step along the process.
If you’d like to become a member of UTSF, then please go here to the UTSF website and click on “BECOME A MEMBER”. Membership gives you voting rights on electing our leaders and ratifying a collective bargaining agreement. Remember, there are no membership dues until a collective bargaining agreement has been ratified and is working to all our benefit. The bigger we are, the more respect we will command from the university administration during bargaining, and even after. So, there is no downside, but plenty of upside, to becoming a member.
Finally, while my own involvement in the unionisation efforts is far short of what everyone should be doing, I do want to take the opportunity to thank the many individuals, who have given their time, energy, and, more than anything else, added their unshakable belief to the unionisation effort. The MEA and their affiliate organisation, NEA, were also instrumental in our success — they provided logistical and legal support throughout, and were a steadying bulwark in choppy waters. It’s been an absolute pleasure and honour to work along side these dedicated individuals, both faculty at MSU and the folks at MEA/NEA. Thanks to them and the faculty at large, we are one step closer today! Onward we march.