Overwhelming Majority Full-Time Tufts Lecturers Vote "Union Yes" To Improve Working Conditions, Quality of Life
By a two-to-one margin, full-time lecturers at Tufts University, who are not tenure track, voted overwhelmingly to form their union today, casting ballots to join Faculty Forward and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 509. The victory is the second one within a week for Local 509's Faculty Forward initiative, following recent election by part-time adjuncts at Boston University. Attorney Patrick Bryant advised Local 509 throughout the organizing and election process, as he has for all major higher education organizing initiatives in Boston by SEIU and Local 509.
More than 2,700 non-tenure-track educators throughout the Greater Boston area have come together to improve their profession and the overall quality of higher education through unionization.
As a result of the vote, nearly 100 full-time lecturers at Tufts join adjunct colleagues at Boston University, Northeastern and Lesley in forming unions through SEIU Local 509. In October, part-time lecturers at Tufts signed their first union contract – making significant gains around compensation, working conditions and educators’ role in decision-making. Contingent faculty on the Lesley and Northeastern campuses also began contract negotiations recently, with a union vote currently underway among Bentley University adjuncts.
At 2,700 strong and growing, Boston-area faculty form the core of a robust, nationwide movement to address the crisis in higher education – where the role of educators is increasingly low-wage and marginalized, despite tuition increases and growing endowments. The groundbreaking effort seeks to reinvest in the classroom, raise standards and improve stability through the Faculty Forward and Adjunct Action initiatives.
The Tufts full-time faculty election was conducted in-person, with ballots cast on the university’s Medford campus over a two-day period. More than 80% of eligible faculty members participated in the election.
