One of the author's enduring concerns about the concept of academic freedom is with semantics. It has seemed to him that one of the biggest difficulties with discussions of academic freedom (as with many conversations about "value-laden" terms such as "democracy," "equity," and "justice") is that people begin from different positions and with…

The legality of employment involvement programs--participation of workers in workplace decision making--has not been established. Three National Labor Relations Board decisions illustrate the complex legal, policy, and economic issues relayed to faculty unions. (SK)

The impact of public universities of the Supreme Court's Yeshiva decision regarding faculty collective bargaining is clarified through analysis of the case's meaning for the University of California, Berkeley. A review of the literature on the relationship between collective bargaining and academic governance is provided. (Author/MLW)

Management drive in both higher education and industry is to offer participation to employees but use such participation to increase management control through identifying weak links in a deliberately stressed work situation. Attacks on faculty unions or senates are all part of management's offensive against any control by labor, and also on…

Decisions that need to be made when preparing for labor agreements are outlined including philosophical approach (policy); legal framework (varies between states and between public and private); organizing, unit determination, and election activity decisions; bargaining activity decisions; and contract administration and renegotiation decisions.…

Just as Australian universities are losing their traditions and behaving more like an industry, the Australian Federation of State University Staff Associations has changed from an organization of like-minded professionals and is increasingly following the model of industrial trade unions. (MSE)

Texts of the minority and majority opinions in the case of the National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University are presented, preceded by an analysis of the decision. It is concluded that faculty-administration relations have been damaged, and constructive relations will not easily be restored. (MSE)

Argues that the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges' statement on governance calls for more centralized authority, rejecting both the principles and the practice of shared governance and diminishing the role of faculty. Suggests that the association revise its statement to include a better understanding of how academe…

Developments are traced in 11 of the most recent court cases based on the decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University (1980), which held that faculty at Yeshiva University were managerial employees and not entitled to bargain collectively under the protection of the National Labor Relations Act. The Yeshiva claims described…

This article records and assesses developments in relations between employers and academic staff in British polytechnic institutes and colleges. It focuses on the conditions of service and contracts of employment for lecturers. It also analyzes to what extent these issues are symptomatic of a shift in the employee relations strategy of schools…

The academic common law may soon vanish, not as a result of court action but due to the American Association of University Professors's declining role in defending the common law of academic employment. The profession is challenged to maintain its independence from external control by reconsidering its own common law. (Author/MLW)

Colleges in the United Kingdom are currently undergoing significant shifts in how staff and faculty contracts are restructured and this paper takes a close look at why this process is going on, its legal ramifications, and how administrators can manage it. An introduction describes the background to the current trends and explores various ways of…

This paper looks at the meaning of academic freedom and threats to that freedom in recent conflicts and legal rulings. The introduction calls academic freedom confusing and widely misunderstood and offers an historical and legal explanation of the concept as well as discussion of the traditional areas of conflict in instruction, research,…

A theory of strikes in higher education and a statistical analysis of strike activity are presented in this newsletter issue. The report on the theory of strikes in an article by Lisa Flanzraich addresses the absence of strikes on campuses during fall 1982 and the conditions in which strikes occur. The absence of strikes could be proof of the…

The early impact and subsequent expansion of the National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University decision by the Supreme Court is reviewed. (MLW)