Openness, organizing, and job action at the University of Manitoba Faculty Association

Abstract

For over a decade the University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA) has integrated organizing approaches into multiple rounds of collective bargaining negotiations to build power amongst its members and make significant gains during collective bargaining. We describe and analyze our practical and lived experiences of integrating organizing tools including charting, structure tests, union openness and transparency, and “big open bargaining.” In sharing these experiences, we encourage other academic faculty associations to similarly embrace organizing approaches and seek to demonstrate how organizing approaches can be integrated into existing union cultures and across multiple rounds of bargaining.