The Determinants of Union Attitudes among Community College Professors

Gregory T. Goldey
Eric Swank
Constance Hardesty
Randall Swain

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DOI: 10.2190/CN.32.4.a

Abstract

As the growth of faculty unions peaked in the mid and late 1970s, so did the number of studies on professorial union attitudes. With only a handful of studies of faculty union attitudes in the last 20 years, this topic has been seriously overlooked. To counter this problem, this article explores the union attitudes of professors in Kentucky's community college system. After addressing some of the current trends in academic work conditions, this article applies four theoretical models to a sample of 329 community college professors. In using the assertions of C. Wright Mills [1] and more recent studies as a theoretical framework, this work tests the effects of four explanatory models (social demographics, union contacts, political orientations, and perceptions of campus conditions) on union attitudes. After running several multivariate regressions, this work concludes that issues of social backgrounds, everyday teaching complaints, or matters of faculty pay do not govern union sentiments. Instead, pro-union sentiments are influenced by the way administrators share power, belong to union-friendly social networks, perceive union efficacy, and maintain a liberal or progressive social identity.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.