School of the Art Institute faculty move to organize with union representing support staff, museum workers – Chicago Tribune

Nontenure track faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago announced their intention Tuesday to organize with the Art Institute of Chicago Workers United, the union representing staff at both the Michigan Avenue museum and its school.

In an open letter released Tuesday and signed by almost 200 adjunct professors and lecturers at the school, employees voiced concerns about compensation, job security and benefits.

“Our working conditions are intolerable. We write in protest of a two-tier system of compensation and benefits that is creating a permanent underclass of contingent faculty,” the faculty wrote.

“When part-time faculty are not sufficiently supported, the entire institution suffers,” the letter read. “Staff are continually engaged in training and assisting disoriented new hires; full-time faculty often have little idea who their colleagues are or how sharply their workloads and compensation diverge; students are taught and mentored by exhausted people, doing too much for too little.”

In a news release, the Art Institute union said the faculty organizing committee will expand its efforts to collect signed union authorization cards in the coming days, the first step toward filing for union representation. According to the faculty letter, the about 600 nontenure track faculty make up more than three quarters of the school’s faculty.

In January, Art Institute workers voted 142 to 44 to form the first major museum union in the city. School of the Art Institute of Chicago staff voted 115 to 48 to join the union.

The union now represents about 500 workers including curators, retail employees, custodians and librarians at the museum and academic advisers, administrative assistants and mailroom workers at the school. If a majority of about 600 non-tenure track faculty win a vote to join the union, they will more than double its current membership. The faculty would form the union’s third bargaining unit, separate from existing bargaining units for museum and school staff.

“As we shared with faculty, this is a choice part-time faculty will make individually and collectively,” said Bree Witt, the school’s director of communications. “If a union is voted in, the School will work with the bargaining team on matters relating to pay, benefits, appointment terms, and other working conditions.”

Art Institute of Chicago Workers United is part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents public service workers nationwide. The union represents museum and library workers across the country, including at the Chicago Public Library.

The union and museum management met for their first bargaining session last week, according to Anders Lindall, spokesperson for AFSCME Council 31, which represents museum workers and school support staff.