The University of Colorado Boulder’s Boulder Faculty Assembly will begin exploring how collective bargaining might work on campus starting this summer.
Two members of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, Regents Elliott Hood and Ilana Spiegel, announced in January that they’re working on developing a policy that would grant CU workers at all campuses the right to unionize. The timeline for proposing the policy was delayed to allow shared governance groups, including the Boulder Faculty Assembly, to provide input.
The Boulder Faculty Assembly passed two collective bargaining resolutions in April: a motion of support for collective bargaining at CU and another calling for a task force to determine how to implement collective bargaining.
The Boulder Faculty Assembly will convene a task force to examine how collective bargaining can be implemented on campus, with a focus on complementing existing shared governance structures. Shared governance, including groups such as the Boulder Faculty Assembly, is a model that gives faculty and staff a say in university decision-making. The task force will explore ways shared governance and collective bargaining could work together to advocate “for workplace safety, academic freedom, and improved employee compensation,” according to the motion.
CU Denver has approved similar resolutions, Hood said, and the two campuses will begin the task force work this summer. Hood shared this update on Thursday during a regent committee meeting.
“I know that some in the system would prefer that we move faster on this, but it’s a really important topic,” Hood said. “It’s important that we allow our employees sufficient time to diligently and deliberately study this question before we put a policy on the table.”
Hood said Thursday’s update will be the last process update he will provide until the collective bargaining policy is ready to be proposed.
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