Collective Bargaining
Faculty Rights
Do you understand your Weingarten Rights?
Your dean calls you into the office, shuts the door and questions you about the way you handled a certain situation. The tone becomes accusatory or adversarial. You start to feel anxious and worry you could face disciplinary action. Should you invoke your Weingarten rights? The answer is yes, absolutely, and faculty have the right to do so thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in NLRB v. Weingarten.
How do you invoke your Weingarten rights?
First invoke your right to union representation by making this statement: “If this discussion could in any way lead to my being disciplined or terminated, or affect my personal working conditions, I respectfully request that my union representative be present.”
When an employee makes the request for a union representative to be present management has three options:
- Stop questioning until the representative arrives.
- Call off the interview.
- Tell the employee that it will call off the interview unless the employee voluntarily gives up his/her rights to union representation (an option the employee should always refuse).
Then what? Contact your local CCA representative. Find out more about how to protect yourself with this link:
NEA Briefings on Collective Bargaining
The National Education Association, CCA and CTA’s national affiliate, offers a wealth of information and briefings on collective bargaining as well as specific information on collective bargaining in higher education. . You and your chapter will find some of the papers below valuable as background to negotiations.
What is collective bargaining?
Collective Bargaining Benefits Everyone
Collective Bargaining: Setting the Record Straight
Collective Bargaining Agreements
You can find information on specific Collective Bargaining Agreements on the websites of the individual community colleges and faculty associations. Always know your contract!!!
