Union activity of non-tenure track faculty has been on the rise in recent years. There has been some and controversy surrounding the activity and university responses. Mark Kreidler for Capital and Main reports on a controversy at the University of Southern California. A group of faculty

“voted to unionize in June, the university cloaked its decision to appeal the result of the election in the most gentle language imaginable, saying it was seeking `much needed legal clarity.’ . . . .In truth, though, the university has been fighting fiercely for years to prevent the roughly 2,750 non-tenure-track faculty members from organizing and collectively bargaining their future contracts. And this time, union supporters say, USC is relying on President Donald Trump’s administration for help.”

USC is appealing to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). “The university is . . . arguing, as it did in an earlier appeal, that the NLRB itself is unconstitutional, thus taking a page out of the playbook of SpaceX, Amazon, Starbucks and other . . . companies . . . .”

“They’d like to throw this election in the garbage and have Trump’s NLRB take out the trash for them,” said a USC associate professor of writing, who helped organize the United Faculty-UAW.