College Faculty As “Managerial Employees”: Implications of the Yeshiva University Decision for Faculty Unionization

11 COLLEGE FACULTY AS "MANAGERIAL EMPLOYEES": IMPLICATIONS OF THE YESHIVA UNIVERSITY DECISION FOR FACULTY UNIONIZATION* Barbara A. Lee Planning Staff, Bureau of Higher and Continuing Education U.S. Office of Education The decision of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in 1970 to as­ sume jurisdiction over labor relations in private institutions of higher edu­ cation initiated nearly a decade of conflict, confrontation, and uncertainty over the role of faculty in the governance of colleges and universities. Despite the upheaval which the 1970 Cornell University decision (183 NLRB 329) engendered in labor relations within higher education, the unionization of faculty at private colleges and universities had proceeded with few signi­ ficant challenges through the summer of 1978, for faculty at 76 private in­ stitutions had formed bargaining units ("Special Report #12" 1978, p. 14). Considerable expertise in the specialized area of contract negotiating in an academic setting had developed, and it appeared that academe was learn­ ing to live with, if not to welcome, formalized bargaining relationships be­ tween faculty and administrators at private and public colleges throughout the country. A decision by a federal Appeals Court, climaxing a four-year fight by a small private university to avoid collective bargaining with its faculty, raised anew many of the issues which had been debated earlier in this decade. Is the role of faculty in the policymaking and governance process of an in­ stitution a managerial one, or is it a concomitant of their professional re­ sponsibilities? When faculty and administrative decisional roles overlap, who is managing the institution? And because both faculty and administrators are professionals trained in specific academic disciplines, do their over­ lapping interests as professionals require that their employee interests be considered virtually identical? This paper examines the Yeshiva University decision in the light of re­ search on the decisionmaking process at colleges and universities and the roles of professionals in these institutions. The criteria used by the NLRB to assess the status of faculty as supervisors, managers, or professional em­ ployees are applied to the activities of faculty members in the academic decisionmaking process. The refusal of the NLRB to promulgate rules which would clarify faculty employee status is criticized, and suggestions for re­ solving the uncertainty created by the Board's adjudication process are offered. The Role of Faculty in the Policy Process The friction between professional employees and bureaucratic authority structures has been well documented (Scott, 1966; Clark, 1970). Blau (1964) found that professionals have undergone long training to acquire specialized knowledge or expertise, and that norms developed during this training engen­ der a strong desire for autonomy over their own work and the conduct of their profession. Dornbusch and Scott (1975) documented an especially firm convic­ tion held by college faculty that the only legitimate evaluations of profes­ sional capabilities and decisions on the direction of the institution's aca­ demic activities were those made by the faculty themselves. Professionals expect, and often assume, considerable authority in the policy process of an organization based not on their hierarchical authority within that organiza­ tion, but on their specialized knowledge and the deference of their profes­ sional colleagues (Scott, 1966). *Paper presented to the Association for the Study of Higher Education Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., April 19, 1979. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author in her private capacity. No endorsement by the U.S. Office of Education is intended or should be inferred. 12 Despite earlier writings which characterized colleges as communities of scholars (Goodman, 1962; Millett, 1962), it is generally recognized that academic organizations are political systems (Baldridge, 1971), subject to the vagaries of fluctuating participation (Milbrath, 1965), charismatic leadership, and intra-group conflict (Coser, 1956). A recent theory of the policy process at academic institutions has characterized them as "organized anarchies" which suffer from uncertain goals, unclear technology, and fluid participation by organizational members in the decisionmaking process (Cohen and March, 1974). Although the concept of "shared authority" between faculty and administrators describes the academic decisionmaking process on a sub­ stantial number of college campuses (Mortimer and McConnell, 1978; Keeton, 1971), the amount and scope of decisional authority exercised by faculty varies considerably among institutions, and often...