The Adjunct Faculty Organization at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, MI has an election date to determine whether or not adjunct faculty at HFCC want to be represented for the purposes of collective bargaining.  Here is the press release.

____________________________________________________________

Election Date Set for HFCC Adjunct Faculty Union

For Immediate Release: March 10, 2008

Contacts:     Mary Beck / Bill Norris, HFCC adjuncts and AFO steering committee members

An election date of April 15 has been established by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) for Henry Ford Community College (HFCC) adjunct (part-time) faculty to begin voting to establish a collective bargaining unit under the auspices of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

Ballots will be mailed by MERC to all eligible adjunct faculty April 15, and must be returned to MERC in envelopes included in the original mailing by May 5. On May 6, MERC staff will count the votes and determine whether a simple majority has voted in favor of establishing a union.

The April 15 date was set by MERC at a Feb. 26 meeting where representatives of the HFCC Adjunct Faculty Organization (AFO) and representatives of the HFCC administration reached final agreement on which adjunct faculty would be eligible to vote. The HFCC administration, represented by HR Director Elizabeth Davis and Robert Boonin, an attorney with Butzel-Long in Ann Arbor, came to an agreement with AFO representatives that the new union will include all adjunct faculty teaching credit-awarding classes, as well as those doing non-credit instructional work as part-time librarians, counselors, English Language Institute and Learning Lab instructors, job placement officers, and cooperative education specialists.

"It is truly rewarding to have reached this goal," said Bill Norris, one of the original members of the AFO steering committee.  "Many people worked very hard for a long time on this effort.  Their dedication to this most worthy of tasks has finally paid off."

Establishing an election date was the culmination of months of effort by AFO members. The process began nearly a year ago when several adjunct faculty decided to investigate how to form a union. During the fall, AFO steering committee members conducted a membership campaign, signing up the large majority of HFCC adjuncts as AFO members.  Following a successful certification election, the AFO and administration would begin negotiating a first contract over the summer.

The HFCC Adjunct Faculty Organization (AFO) was formed in 2007 and is the union representing part-time instructional staff at Henry Ford Community College. The AFO is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan, AFL-CIO, which also represents the full-time faculty at HFCC, as well as adjuncts at Wayne State University, Wayne County Community College, the University of Michigan, and Eastern Michigan University. Nationally, the AFT has led the way in higher education organizing, representing more than 60,000 part-time/adjunct faculty members.