School’s full-time faculty members vote to unionize
Full-time staffers strongly support vote to unionize
Full-time faculty members at Santa Fe Community College will be represented by a new affiliate of the American Association of University Professors following a vote Wednesday that was overwhelmingly in favor of organizing a union.
“This is a really big day for us — it’s a defining moment for SFCC faculty,” said Marci Eannarino, lead organizer of the unionization effort and a teacher in the community college’s English, Reading and Speech Department. The vote was 39-3, with about 88 percent of eligible full-time teachers casting ballots.
“I feel like our singular voice is only as loud as our participation warrants,” Eannarino said. “Today, SFCC faculty made that utterly clear.”
At least 40 percent of faculty members who were eligible to vote had to take part in the election for Santa Fe Community College-AAUP to go forward. The school has a full-time teaching staff of nearly 90 and only 48 could cast ballots. Department leaders and program directors could not participate and will not be represented by the union.
The professors union also will not represent adjunct professors, who outnumber full-time faculty nearly 2-to-1, or other fulltime staff members such as secretaries, janitors and cafeteria workers.
Thomas Griego, executive director of the state Public Employees Labor Relations Board, oversaw the voting, which took place on the college’s Richards Avenue campus. He said the Labor Relations Board will take the next steps to certify the union during a meeting Tuesday.
The board might later decide to expand the union to include department chairs and program directors, he said.
Unionization efforts are growing on college and university campuses around the nation, including a push to organize part-time teachers. In New Mexico, staff or faculty unions are in place at Northern New Mexico College in Española and New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, N.M.
Faculty members at Santa Fe Community College have been considering organizing a collective bargaining unit for at least a decade, said Eannarino, who led the charge last year.
Wednesday’s vote shows that they’re ready to “do the work to claim their rights,” she said.
“We feel that the college [will work] best when faculty can learn from their students, and from each other, and speak the wisdom that comes from that at the bargaining table,” Eannarino added.
Santa Fe Community College President Randy Grissom said efforts to start a union on the campus had failed repeatedly since the school opened on Richards Avenue in 1983, but he “was not surprised” by the outcome of Wednesday’s vote.
“We will honor the wishes of the faculty,” Grissom said. “They needed to speak their voice — and they have.”