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Lay Activism and Activism Intentions in a Faculty Union: An Exploratory Study

Lay Activism and Activism Intentions in a Faculty Union: An Exploratory Study. by Jack Fiorito*, Dan Tope, Philip Steinberg, Irene Padavic, and Caroline Murphy, Florida State University *and U. of Hertfordshire BUIRA, Manchester 2010. Lay Activism in a Faculty Union.

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Lay Activism and Activism Intentions in a Faculty Union: An Exploratory Study

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  1. Lay Activism and Activism Intentions in a Faculty Union:An Exploratory Study by Jack Fiorito*, Dan Tope, Philip Steinberg, Irene Padavic, and Caroline Murphy, Florida State University *and U. of Hertfordshire BUIRA, Manchester 2010

  2. Lay Activism in a Faculty Union • Most union members are unwilling or unable to fund staff sufficient to provide satisfactory service • Large role for activism in many of Heery’s (2003) renewal strategies • Surprising resistance (Hickey, Kurvilla, & Lakhani, 2010 BJIR) to suggestions in an earlier paper stressing activism’s role in renewal (Gall & Fiorito 2007), but Hickey et al. found a major role in over 80% of renewal cases they studied • In short: Activism is critical, but maybe not always • Why study faculty union activism? • We had the data (from regularly conducted poll) • Professionals a growing segment of union membership • First-hand knowledge might help in sense-making

  3. FSU faculty voted 736 – 33 to retain UFF representation in 2003How did UFF pull off that stunning win? A: Lots of volunteer effort in identifying and mobilizing likely “yes” voters. Staff were important in this effort too. Gov Jeb Bush led an effort to dislodge the faculty union, UFF, from Florida’s state university system in 2002-2003

  4. UFF-FSU Rally in Support of Bargaining Team, 2006

  5. In 2009, During the Florida Legislative Session, UFF-FSU Organized Florida’s Largest Pro-Higher Ed March and Rally in Memory Fate of the State Rally Find Your Voice at FSU

  6. Prior Research on Union Commitment and ParticipationA few central findings with many variations BKSIntegrative Model (Bamberger et al. 1999) sums up meta-analysis of prior studies’ findings. All links are positive except Job Satisfaction => Union Commitment is negative.

  7. Our Model of Lay Activism Job Satisfaction Instrumentality Activism Past Year Next Year Activism Context (department level) Union Attitude Controls (Longevity, Tenure)

  8. What’s Notable in this Formulation?(Say, as in contrast to the BKS model) • Focus intended on Activism (excl. passive participation) • Reduced form – drop intervening links including union and organizational commitment • Parsimony: Focus on “essentials” • Potential for illumination on issue of “exchange and covenant” (relative importance of instrumental and ideological or economic and social influences) • Extension to include activism context (department)

  9. Hypotheses H1: Activism will be negatively related to job satisfaction. H2: Activism will be positively related to perceived union performance in representing members (instrumentality). H3: Activism will be positively related to feelings toward the union (union attititude). H4: Activism will be positively related to the favourableness of the activism context in which individuals work.

  10. Data, Methods, and Measures • Cross-section of faculty union members from a large comprehensive state university • Mostly single-item Likert-style scales • Standard analyses: OLS regression supplemented by correlation and descriptive stats (considered multi-level HLM but data were “insufficiently nested”) • Dependent variables or criteria • Past Activism: … your level of activity in the union during the past year? (4-point scale) • Activism Intent: … your interest in volunteering to help the union in the next year? (4-point scale)

  11. Hart 2003 (N=269) and UFF-FSU 2009 Activism Responses (N=242)

  12. Hart 2003 (N=269) and UFF-FSU 2009 Future Activism Intentions (N=215)

  13. Measures, continued --Independent variables and controls • General Satisfaction: Generally speaking, I'm satisfied with the way things are going at FSU (Florida State University) • Instrumentality: How would you rate the overall performance of the union Chapter in representing union members like you? • Union Attitude: … Please rate your feelings toward the union, using the following choices (5 choices from very negative to very positive) • Activism Context: Union density or activism level in department/unit • Union Longevity: For how long have you been a union member at FSU? • Tenure Status: “Permanent” employment status (1/0) derived from responses about job classification and tenure track status items

  14. Digression on Department Level Membership and Activism Data • Short version! • Tried to exploit union internal data on membership and activism of individuals to examine • How self-reports from poll compared to independent evidence • Departmental context (membership, activism) effects • Considerable discussion in the paper on four alternate independent summary measures of activism, two of which end up used as alternate Activism Context measures • One notable bit here: Consensus on importance of different activism components considered from union records

  15. Leaders' Ratings of Activism Weightings (Subjective Weights)

  16. Correlations for Individual-Level Past Activism and Activism Intentions Models (N=151)Department-Level Activism Indices Also Shown Correlations of about 0.16 in absolute value or greater are statistically significant at the .05 level or better, and 0.14 or greater at the .10 level or better (two-tailed tests).

  17. OLS Regression Results for Past Activism and Activism Intent, N=151Standardized Betas and Summary Statistics * :.05 level or better; +: .10 level or better, one-tailed tests for regression coefficients

  18. Results – Discussion Points • Consistent dissatisfaction effects: Faculty are not so different. Also links to surprising tenure effect? • Collinearity-afflicted (r=.78) results for union instrumentality and pro-union attitude. They matter, but our measures do not allow disentangling or comparing their effects • Activism context (departmental activism) effect adds evidence on social context/covenant considerations, albeit from a “new angle”

  19. Conclusions and Future Research • Future research • Hindsight suggests several possible improvements, but practicality – ability to “hijack” the union’s survey for research purposes – may limit future options • Need to understand and develop activism may offset that • More substantive conclusions and questions • “Standard model” (Bamberger et al.-based) mostly supported • Context effects supported, deserve more attention • How do unions make activism the norm rather than the exception? • Not “constant mass mobilization,” but a broader and more reliable activist base is a powerful resource: There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun • More on the faculty union: http://www.uff-fsu.org

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