Anti-union campaigns rely on spreading misconceptions about unions, organizing, and negotiating. These are easily refuted:

MYTH: Unions are for blue-collar workers

All workers, regardless of the kind of job they have, deserve a say in their working conditions. This is why higher education unions are forming at an unprecedented rate: faculty understand that university working conditions are changing, becoming increasingly corporatized and bureaucratized, with faculty having less and less control by the day. Currently, the university can unilaterally impose any policies it wants regarding your pay, benefits, workload, and working conditions with no reason given and no obligation to discuss. The only way to create real, meaningful, legally binding checks and balances on administrators is by organizing and bargaining collectively.

MYTH: Unions protect lazy workers

Unions protect good workers from arbitrary treatment. Our faculty colleagues are motivated and committed to teaching, scholarship, research, and our students. A union won’t lower our high standards; rather, it will guarantee that any disciplinary process or termination can only occur with just cause, and it will guarantee that faculty receive due process and representation. In some cases, if a faculty member is struggling and in need of support, a union representative might be able to help identify and rectify the problem prior to the need for severe disciplinary action or termination.

MYTH: Unions create red tape

Unions promote transparency and defined systems that cut through university bureaucracy. A union ensures that we can negotiate fair, clear processes and evenly applied rules. Systems are already difficult to navigate because they change frequently and seemingly without rationale; a faculty union reduces existing red tape.

MYTH: Faculty unions negatively impact the quality of education

Just the opposite: a faculty union fosters—even mandates—a constructive dialogue with University management. Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions, and supporting students by supporting faculty is our top priority. High-quality education means everyone who steps into a classroom, whether student or faculty, regardless of rank or title, is respected as a stakeholder in the process. We ensure that everyone can bring the best they have to offer to the students, community, and academic success of our university, based on our experiences doing the work.

With a union, we will be better able to advance the academic mission of the university while keeping administration accountable. When faculty members have a real seat at the table and are involved in the operational decision-making of the University, we can secure investment in education and educators. Again, when we improve our working conditions, we improve students’ learning conditions.

MYTH: faculty unions cause tuition to increase

No. If anything, a faculty union could help curb administrative bloat and recenter the university around teaching and research.

It is no secret that tuition at PSU is already high. This is due to administrative costs and other spending, not high instructor salaries. Our classes generate more than enough money that the administration could pay a living wage to the workers who keep the University running, if they chose to do so. Placing checks and balances on administrators and gaining transparency about where our students’ money goes is our best bet for getting tuition under control.

MYTH: If faculty unionize, departments won’t attract talent

The list of unionized universities, from the University of California to Harvard with Big Ten flagships in between, shows that faculty unions teem with great talent.

MYTH: Faculty could lose a lot in negotiations

Faculty vote on any tentative agreement and would never approve a loss. Collective bargaining agreements are negotiated between workers and the employer and must be approved by the union members. Your faculty union always bargains for you to receive more and the employer always bargains for you to receive less, which is why it’s so important to pressure administration during negotiations. They will always say “With a union contract you could lose as well as gain,” which is technically true—they’re the side pushing for you to lose—but practically unlikely. Would you vote for a contract that lowers your wages, worsens your working conditions, or reduces your benefits?

More, the status quo is determined entirely by the university, and you currently work at the university’s whim. A union is the only legally recognized entity that the university is obligated to bargain with regarding wages and working conditions. They are currently not obligated to bargain with you individually. They are not obligated to bargain with the faculty senate. Without a faculty union, any future actions from the employer you fear, from increased workload to structural reorganization to nonrenewals and forced layoffs, could happen tomorrow (and in some cases are already underway). If PSU wanted you to take any kind of loss right now, it would simply move unilaterally without any faculty input or possible pushback. Unions empower faculty to end this imbalance by working together.

MYTH: My salary could go down

No, your salary will not go down! Most workers receive a substantial pay increase with their first union contract, and those at the bottom of the pay scale usually see the biggest boost. Full-time Pitt faculty, for example, bargained a $60,000 salary floor in their first contract.

MYTH: A union contract would prevent me from negotiating a better salary

Our goal is to raise the bar for everyone: union contracts set salary floors, not ceilings. Union contracts typically establish a minimum for each type and rank of worker, which still allows individual faculty members to negotiate better conditions for themselves if they have leverage such as another offer. (See the University of Pittsburgh’s collective bargaining agreement for an example of this.)

When employers reference “merit pay,” they’re describing their control over who gets paid what on their terms. Employers picking and choosing salaries—and when (or if) raises are available—breeds favoritism and leads to resentment and division among workers. With a union, wages are set in the contract that you and your fellow union members negotiate and approve. Some union contracts - like Pitt’s - do have merit pay formulas, but always on top of across-the-board pay increases. We will negotiate the most equitable contract for all of us, based on democratically determined faculty priorities.

MYTH: We will lose our flexibility as distinct units/campuses/colleges

That doesn’t have to happen at all, because we set the priorities for our union and for bargaining our eventual contract. We can include as much standardization and as much flexibility for units and departments as we want. Even as we advocate for the changes we want to see, we don’t have to change anything we think works well. In fact, through a union and a contract we can codify the things that work so they can’t be changed unilaterally without faculty input. (For example, the University of Pittsburgh contract explicitly calls out different situations for Nursing and the Falk Laboratory School).

MYTH: I will lose money paying union dues

The cost of union dues is more than offset by significant gains in salaries won via collective bargaining. For example, the University of Pittsburgh contract includes a 1.5% dues rate. Because their contract also includes a first-year raise of $3,900 for full-time faculty and 4% for part-time faculty, all faculty making less than $260,000 a year had their dues paid for by their initial raise (not to mention a salary floor bump where applicable and yearly raises afterward). That said, the benefits of union representation far outweigh the cost of union dues, and faculty would never approve a contract where dues outstrip pay. Moreover, we don’t pay dues until we have a contract.

MYTH: The university will lay faculty off if we unionize

Unions often form under threat of layoffs, though to the best of our knowledge mass faculty layoffs because of unionization campaigns have never occurred. Faculty at Commonwealth campuses already face severe and ever-increasing instability, including reduction of contract lengths and nonrenewals for many non-tenure-line faculty. PSU has more than hinted at campus consolidation and/or discontinuing some programs, and administration can and will restructure operations and lay faculty off without any discussion - let alone bargaining - in the absence of a union. Only through a union can faculty push back.

MYTH: I don’t need a union because I have tenure

You can have tenure and still be underpaid compared to faculty at other universities, and tenure does not guarantee cost-of-living increases. You can have tenure and still be harassed or bullied by administrators. You can have tenure and still be disrespected. You can have tenure and still lack a voice in how our university is run.

And while tenure provides some employment security, it remains an internal university policy that, like course loads, number of students per class, benefits, tuition discounts, and research and teaching requirements, can be changed by the university or suspended in an economic emergency (which the university determines). Instead of relying on administrators to make choices that are good for us, collective bargaining through a faculty union will help with all of these issues.

MYTH: Human Resources (HR) already protects workers’ rights

HR exists to protect the university, not the employees. It is not a resource for you, a human; you are the human resource for the employer. Your union exists to protect you from administrative overreach.

MYTH: We don’t need a union because we have EEOC regulations

EEOC regulations complement union protections, but cannot replace them. They are limited in scope and their enforcement depends on the current presidential administration.

MYTH: The union would replace the Faculty Senate

A faculty union and the faculty senate are not competing organizations—they serve different purposes and both play an important role in building a just university. By building on each other’s strengths, a faculty union and the faculty senate can work together to achieve a common goal.

The University Faculty Senate’s scope is limited to educational and curricular matters. It does not have any bargaining power and, as a purely advisory or consultative body, the university is not obligated to follow its recommendations. The university can—and often does!— ignore the senate to unilaterally impose decisions that affect all Penn State faculty. On the other hand, the university will be legally required to meet the faculty union regarding workplace issues such as wages, job security, benefits, and due process as mandatory subjects of bargaining.

MYTH: We don’t need a union because Penn State has an AAUP chapter

While the senate’s interests are mixed, Penn State’s AAUP chapter is dedicated entirely to faculty concerns. Like the senate, though, Penn State AAUP is an advocacy chapter, which means the university is not legally obligated to bargain with it. The university is legally required to bargain wages and working conditions with a faculty union.

Also like the faculty senate, a union does not compete with the campus AAUP chapter; their roles are complementary and one is not a threat to or replacement for the other.