The Solution to Higher Ed’s Bad Pay Is Unions

By Michelle Chen

Depending on how you measure achievement, the public higher-education system is either highly dysfunctional or hugely successful. While professors face sinking salaries and students writhe under crushing tuition and debt bills, higher education is a booming business, oozing with investment and research capital. But a close look at faculty compensation shows how labor shapes the political economy of the American campus.

A comprehensive analysis of public-regional-university faculties calculates the difference a union makes: about $21,000 annually in pay and benefits. Average salaries of unionized full-time teachers are approximately 15 percent higher, adding some $11,000 to annual earnings, compared to non-union peers. Their benefits bring in an additional $10,000 on average, roughly a third more than non-union counterparts.

Researchers Stephen Katsinas and Nathaniel Bray of University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, and Johnson Ogun of University of North Alabama, crunched data for about 390 public regional universities and found that faculties with collective bargaining rights have a distinct advantage. Even accounting for region and institutional size, union-negotiated contracts are linked to markedly higher annual compensation levels, particularly in large suburban regional institutions ($18,500 more annually) and smaller urban institutions ($17,600 more annually), and significantly higher salaries and benefits even at relatively lower-paying rural institutions.

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[Source]: The Nation.