PARALLEL PRACTICES OF UNION AVOIDANCE IN BUSINESS AND ACADEMIA DURING UNION REPRESENTATION CAMPAIGNS

ABSTRACT: The strategies and tactics of academic administrators during union representation election campaigns by full-time faculty are described and compared with those of managers of private businesses. Data from private businesses and two northeastern research universities based on content analysis of workplace memoranda and home mailings, and from analysis of management-organized meetings, personal interactions and theatrics show strong parallels in union avoidance conduct. Case studies of this form of workplace control add empirical evidence of a hitherto neglected feature of administration in the “corporatized university, ” and help develop critical theoretical perspectives on the restructuring of higher education. “We can beat their union now or beat them later.” —university legal counsel, 1985 In response to official unionization attempts by their full-time faculty, how do the actions of academic administrators compare with managers in private business? Scholars have provided thoroughgoing analyses of anti-unionization conduct by private business management and public administrators during union representation campaigns in the post-Wagner Act era, and have more recently studied such conduct for contingent faculty members.1 The case of challenges to union drives of full-time faculty, however, has yet to be equally explored. Data of the present study evidence that while some contrasts are clear, there are strong parallels between the two spheres with respect to tactics, ideology an