FAQ

Signing your membership card means you stand with your fellow tenured & tenure-track faculty colleagues to strengthen faculty voice and power by being a part of UM-Dearborn AFT-AAUP. Once a strong majority of tenured & tenure-track faculty at UM-Dearborn have signed membership cards, you and your colleagues will use University policy to become recognized as an official faculty union and start negotiating a collective bargaining agreement. By signing your membership card you are committed to working with your colleagues to make your and our colleagues jobs better, protecting academic freedom and tenure, and strengthening faculty voices in shared & transparent university decision making. 

Turn your phone sideways to sign with your finger or stylus and once you have signed, you can turn your phone back to the normal position and submit your membership card. If you have any trouble you can email aaupdearborn@gmail.com.

The e-card will only accept non-umich e-mails in the personal e-mail box. If you don't have a personal e-mail of your own, you can enter the non-umich e-mail or your spouse or partner. Or you can set up a new personal gmail account quite easily.  If you have any trouble you can email aaupdearborn@gmail.com.

Signing up as an official member strengthens your and our colleagues' collective voice as tenured/TT faculty at UM-Dearborn and beyond. Consistent and strong majority support and participation will empower you and our colleagues to win a strong contract with concrete workplace improvements, to effectively enforce your and our rights under the contract, and to enhance your and our colleagues' ability to defend academic freedom, increase job security, improve faculty working conditions and student learning conditions on campus. Our collective strength will also allow us to advocate beyond campus for increasing public funding for higher education in Michigan, and defending academic freedom, diversity, equity, and inclusion alongside faculty across the United States. Officially signing up also makes your and our union more democratic and inclusive since membership gives you the right to participate in the governance of your union, through elections, votes, committees, and other processes. Your voice matters, and signing a membership card ensures your voice will count. 

It takes resources to maintain a strong union and engage in effective representation. Dues provide the resources that you and your colleagues need to organize, act together, and build a strong voice on campus. The actual amount of dues and exactly how the dues are spent are always decided democratically by the members of the union -- in other words, you and your colleagues will decide. Membership dues would start only after you and our colleagues have negotiated our first collective bargaining agreement with the University. And if you and our colleagues in the UM-Dearborn T/TT faculty union show your strength during bargaining, we can bargain to offset dues in the first contract (as our colleagues in the UM-Flint T/TT faculty union have done in their first contract).  

Your UM-Dearborn faculty union will include any tenured & tenure-track faculty members who work on the Dearborn campus at the University of Michigan, and who sign a membership card. As a union representing tenured & tenure-track faculty members, it does not include anyone currently in an administrative role, like department chairs, deans, associate deans, etc. Faculty members can move in and out of the union as they move in and out of administrative positions (for example, a Full Professor might be in the union, leave to be a chair, and then return to the union when they go back to their faculty role). 

The reason for this type of union & membership is based on state labor law and other types of unions the University has recognized. 

By law, employers must be willing to negotiate with unions on mandatory subjects, which include salary, benefits, and working conditions. (What falls into “working conditions” might itself require negotiation.) If both the employer and the union agree, they can also negotiate about permissive subjects, which could include anything that could legally be included in a contract. 

Among the things a T/TT faculty union might negotiate are…

• University coverage of union dues for the duration of the first contract.

• Terms of sabbaticals. The Western Washington University faculty union negotiated a full one-year of paid sabbatical leave. 

• Professional development funds.

• Workload policies.

• Restrictions on class-size-to-professor ratios. 

• Allowances for remote work. 

• Parental leave. Currently at UM, this is left up to units, and individual faculty usually have to negotiate the details.

• Childcare benefits.

• Tuition benefits.

• Etc.

Both a strong union and faculty senate can play important roles in improving the lives and working conditions of faculty. While the faculty senate is one system to facilitate shared governance and amplify faculty voice at UM, it is not a replacement or substitue for a faculty union. The faculty senate can make non-binding recommendations to the administration on behalf of faculty but cannot serve as a representative in bargaining collectively as equals with the university administration over wages, benefits, and the terms and conditions of employment to reach a binding contract. Faculty unions at UM Flint and across the country have used their collective bargaining rights to win raises, guaranteed research funding, and protections for tenure. Without collective bargaining, the university has unilateral power to change our working conditions or decide whether or not to make improvements. Collective bargaining by faculty can strengthen faculty voices and make shared governance more effective. 

No. The U-M Regents are very clear on this matter. For example, the new University Staff United union includes this “Know Your Rights” statement: “The U-M Board of Regents passed a neutrality agreement in 2020, which requires all managers and administrators to remain neutral and voluntarily recognize a reasonable bargaining unit, if it reaches a majority during a membership drive. This means that your supervisor or University leadership cannot retaliate against you for your involvement in your union, no matter how big or small.” 

International faculty have the same legal right to join professional societies and unions as US citizens. International faculty, postdocs, and graduate students have been instrumental in organizing and running higher ed/academic employee organizations across the country. Faculty organizing can create protections that are especially valuable for international academic employees.