Forum at U on collective bargaining in higher education

Three academic experts on labor-management relations will participate in a forum at the University of Minnesota on “Collective Bargaining in Higher Education.”

The forum will be Wednesday, Feb. 22, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the Crosby Seminar Room of 240 Northrop Auditorium on the University’s Minneapolis campus. It is free and open to the public.

Panelists are Monica Bielski Boris, director of the Labor Education Service in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota; Steven Garfinkle, professor in the Department of History at Western Washington University; and William P. Jones, professor in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota.

All have expertise or first-hand experience in collective bargaining and governance. Bielski Boris teaches courses on arbitration, contract negotiations, political economy and union organizing and has partnered with labor organizations to conduct applied research.

Garfinkle was an original member of the organizing committee for United Faculty of Western Washington and served as president of the UFWW from 2009 to 2013.

Jones recently joined the University of Minnesota faculty after 11 years at the University of Wisconsin. He is author of The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights and is currently writing a book about collective bargaining in the public sector following the Second World War.

The forum will examine whether and how collective bargaining can be an effective mechanism for faculty to participate in shaping university policy and their own working conditions. It is sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota and cosponsored by the American Association of University Professors–Twin Cities Chapter.

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