History
With shared governance, many people thought there was no need for a union for staff and faculty. Until 2015, the language in Chapter 36 of the Wisconsin Statues provided staff, faculty, and students with decision-making power, and faculty power even superseded that of the administration. (Spoto v. Board of Regents). At UWEC, our FASRP (July 2023) still contains this old language in Part I, Article 1.
What Changed
That is no longer true. As part of the 2015-17 budget, Chapter 36 was rewritten specifically to subordinate staff, faculty, and student shared governance bodies to administration.
- In section 36.09, after enumerating the responsibilities of chancellors, legislators inserted subsection (3m), which reads:
- “MEANING OF ‘SUBJECT TO’ IN CERTAIN PROVISIONS. In subs. (4) to (5), ‘subject to the responsibilities and powers’ means subordinate to the responsibilities and powers.
- Those subsections (4) and (5), which define Faculty (4), Academic Staff (4m), and Student (5) shared governance respectively, were revised to make shared governance “advisory” only and explicitly subordinate to the Chancellor, Board of Regents, and System President. Subsections (4) and (4m) now read:
- “FACULTY. The faculty of each institution, subject to the responsibilities and powers of the board, the president, and the chancellors of such institution, shall have the primary responsibility for advising the chancellor regarding academic and educational activities and faculty personnel matters….”
- “ACADEMIC STAFF. The academic staff members of each institution, subject to the responsibilities of the board, the president, the chancellor, and the faculty of the institution, shall have the primary responsibility for advising the chancellor regarding the formulation and review, and shall be represented in development, of all policies and procedures concerning academic staff members, including academic staff personnel matters….”
In short, staff and faculty get an advisory voice, but no decision-making authority. In the event of a disagreement with our superiors, staff and faculty have little recourse.
Union Power
Collective action is the last-remaining source of power for staff and faculty. At no point in the last half-century has there been a greater need for a union. We work cooperatively with administration through shared governance whenever we can, but a strong union is the only remaining counter-weight to the centralization of power and political attacks on academic freedom and shared governance.