The checkers at Walmart have more in common with Western's faculty than they may think.

University faculties around Washington state have no right to collectively bargain their contracts and no protection under law to join a trade union. Even at liberally outspoken Western, the faculty would have to get permission from the Board of Trustees if it wanted the same kind of equitable labor relations enjoyed by professionals in many other fields.

Western has a faculty senate in place of a union, but the faculty members do not have the right to collectively bargain a contract, or to binding arbitration during grievance resolution. In other words, they do not have the ability to act in their own defense or for the betterment of Western.

In 1995, Eastern Washington University's faculty members fought for and won the right to collectively bargain their contracts, and joined both the Washington Education Association and Washington Federation of Teachers. Eastern Faculty President Jeff Corkill said, in an interview with The Front, Eastern's faculty was very displeased with the way its administration was working at the time.

"The faculty felt disenfranchised," Corkill said. "We were getting quite a bit behind in salaries. ... People just felt like they were being walked over."

Corkill explained that the Faculty Senate system at Eastern, which was nearly identical to Western's system, had "no teeth to it."

With the new system at Eastern, faculty members have a better idea what is expected of them and are able to solve problems with administrative decisions much more quickly than before. These improvements, in addition to better salaries, have helped Eastern's faculty members do their job better.
It is time for Western's faculty to assert itself and unionize. The Faculty Senate is certainly a valuable tool, but it fails to give the faculty enough power to control its own future.

According to a study done by the University Planning Council, Western's "faculty salaries are below the average for comparable universities in all ranks." The same study showed that the growth in non-tenure track faculty is greater than that of tenure track faculty, meaning fewer tenure track professors are being courted in order to cut costs.

With collective bargaining, the faculty could demand more competitive salaries and force the administration to acquire full-time faculty under the threat of a walkout. Teachers' unions have been successful across the nation in defending their members' rights while improving the quality of education for students.

Western's student body and faculty must stand united in a demand for a unionized faculty with the ability to bargain collectively. A stronger faculty organization will draw additional highly skilled professionals to Western, improving Western's reputation and the quality of education it offers. It will increase the value of a Western degree after college for students, and better the working environment for faculty.