Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Local 620 is pushing for the authorization of five more Pitzer professors, which would make the union the official voice of the tenured and tenure-track faculty in negotiations with the administration.

On November 20 last semester Pitzer professors reached the ten-member minimum required to join the union.

With a current membership of 23 professors, the chapter is now preparing for an authorization drive. If a simple majority of Pitzer professors authorize the union to bargain for them – a step short of actually joining the union – it will serve as the bargaining unit for all tenured faculty, and will be the faculty’s official voice in any negotiations with the administration. The union is currently five authorizations short of a majority.

"It’s a person-by-person effort," said Pitzer Professor of Political Studies Dana Ward, a member of the IWW, known commonly as a "Wobbly." "Our long term goal is to unionize every employee at Pitzer," said Ward. "Right now our focus is on tenured and tenure-track faculty."

Although professors at Pitzer have flirted with the idea of unionizing at various times, there was never an official union presence until this year. Other unions, including the California Faculty Association, failed to generate much interest with professors.

The faculty took a renewed interest in unionization as a result of the administration’s reaction to the unionization efforts of food service workers last year. Many professors were angered by what they saw as Pitzer’s anti-union stance towards food service workers’ efforts.

Some professors were also greatly angered by comments allegedly made by Pitzer administration legal counsel at a meeting with the faculty executive committee in the middle of the fall semester.

"The lawyers who represent the college spoke to the faculty executive committee and staff council. The lawyers’ understanding of the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) laws was that legal precedents set to this time meant that the faculty of private colleges could not unionize, because they are understood to be part of the administration," said Media Studies Professor Alexandra Juhasz, who was present at last year’s meeting.

The administration’s legal counsel also advised the faculty that as members of management, involvement in the food service workers’ unionization efforts might in fact be a legal obstacle to their unionizing efforts, according to professors who attended the meeting.

"You could consider it a warning," said Juhasz. Against the advice of counsel, several Pitzer professors were actively involved in protesting on behalf of food service workers during the student-led demonstrations of last fall.

"We would not interfere in any unionizing efforts by the food service workers, although we support their unionizing efforts," said Ward. The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 established the regulation of labor-managerial relations through the National Labor Relations Board. Interpretations of the 1947 Act have changed over the years, and the designation of professors at private colleges as managerial employees has been complicated by recent legal precedents.

Although two members of Local 620 serve as delegates to the larger organization, there is no president or chairman of the union group. "The Wobblies are a very democratic organization. There are no hierarchies, no leaders."

Although the labor controversies of last year were clearly a factor in the decision to unionize, the motivations of professors in joining the union are not uniform. "There are as many reasons for joining as there are union members," said Pitzer Professor of Psychology Alan Jones, who is a member of the IWW. "It’s not all about salaries, wages, or benefits. Some of it has to do with the way the school is run, how decisions are made."

Although the IWW has made significant progress at Pitzer in the past year, Associate Professor of Political Studies Nigel Boyle expressed the point of view of a majority of the faculty when he said, "They haven’t persuaded me to join."