NLRB Official Says Fill-In Instructors at Lesley Can Join Union!

[Omaha Steve]

I missed posting this yesterday in LBN.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/nlrb-official-says-fill-in-instructors-at-lesley-can-join-union/96939

April 9, 2015 by Peter Schmidt

A regional official of the National Labor Relations Board has approved potential union participation for 14 Lesley University instructors classified as “temporary” because they were hired to fill in for absent faculty members for substantial period of time.

In a decision issued Wednesday, Jonathan B. Kreisberg, director of the NLRB’s regional office in Boston, said he did not see any reason why such temporary faculty members should be precluded from joining about 180 other Lesley instructors classified as “core” faculty members in voting on whether to form a collective-bargaining unit affiliated with the Service Employees International Union.

The temporary faculty members, hired to fill in for core faculty members who are on sabbatical or leave or who have recently resigned, share common interests with those employed on a longer-term basis because they perform many of the same duties and have similar working conditions, Mr. Kreisberg held. Moreover, although such temporary faculty members work on one-year contracts, enough are hired repeatedly to give them some expectation of continued employment there, he said.

Amanda McGregor, a Lesley University spokeswoman, declined Wednesday to comment on the NLRB official’s decision or to say whether Lesley plans to appeal. Part-time adjunct instructors at Lesley voted last year to form a union affiliated with the SEIU.

FULL story at link.