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Update from Provost on Election

August 12, 2016

Colleagues – I am writing to update you on the non-tenure track faculty unionization effort.  As you know, a mail ballot election was held in July.  Approximately 72% of the 700 eligible voters cast a ballot in the election, so I thank you for your participation in the process.  As I reported in my message on July 19, there were a number of ballots that were challenged and thus set aside and not counted. Of the ballots that were challenged, the vast majority of the challenges were made by SEIU.

Today the NLRB opened and counted 58 of the challenged ballots.  The ballots that were counted were cases in which the union either withdrew its challenge or the NLRB ruled against the challenge based upon documentary evidence. The outcome of today’s count was an additional 13 votes in favor of the union and 45 votes against the union. Thus, as of today, there are a total of 223 votes in favor of the union and 191 votes against the union.  There will now be a hearing at the NLRB beginning on August 23 to determine whether the remaining 71 challenged ballots will be counted or not based upon the NLRB’s rulings on voter eligibility.

I will continue to update you as more information is available.  I hope you are enjoying the end of the summer. Thank you all.


Daniel Linzer
Provost