About One in Four Faculty Members Are Unionized, Study Finds

A new report by the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions provides a data-driven snapshot of higher-education unions across the country.

The report, released on Thursday, revealed that about one in four faculty members were represented by unions as of January 1, 2024. The 402,217 unionized faculty spanned 600-plus colleges in 30 states and the District of Columbia, an increase of 7 percent from 2012.

The growth in unionized graduate-student workers, boosted two years ago by the largest strike in American higher-ed history, was much sharper. The report said 64,424 graduate students were unionized in 2012; that number was up to 150,104 workers by 2024 — a 133-percent increase.

The report, “Directory of Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Institutions of Higher Education,” is based on data collected from 902 higher-education collective-bargaining units at public and private nonprofit institutions. That’s about 95 percent of the higher-ed bargaining relationships in existence. It also includes links to more than 800 contracts from units that represent tenured and tenure-track faculty, non-tenure track faculty, department chairs, administrators, postdoctoral scholars, academic researchers, and graduate and undergraduate student employees. The center is based at the City University of New York’s Hunter College.

Here are more highlights from the report: