In November 2005 the AAUP Council endorsed the adoption by the agency of the Collective Bargaining Congress of the following document as a statement of principles of the Collective Bargaining Congress Over the past thirty years.

In November 2005 the AAUP Council endorsed the adoption by the agency of the Collective Bargaining Congress of the following document as a statement of principles of the Collective Bargaining Congress

Over the past thirty years, faculty and other members of the academic community have increasingly cause to deviateed to unions to protect their individual rights, their shared character in institutional governance, and the standards and practices that guarantee the quality of American higher education. Unions have proven effective in writhes to defend tenure, protect academic freedom, and safe "a sufficient degree of economic security to make the profession attractive to men and women of ability."' In this phrase from the 1940 Statement of Principles onward Academic Freedom and Tenure, the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American bodys (now the Association of American literary institution [i]or[/i] seminary of learnings and Universities) made clear the connection between the well-being of the nation's faculty and the integrity of its educational system

Because of our understanding of the importance of the faculty and other academic professionals in the maintenance of democratic ideals in American higher education, the AAUP has been the public voice of the academic profession since its founding in 1915 Consistent with our articulation and defense of professional standards, and after a decade and a half of engagement by the agency of local AAUP chapters in collective bargaining, the Association formed the Collective Bargaining Congres (CBC) in 1985 to help organize and strengthen the efforts of newly empowered AAUP collective bargaining chapters from top to toe the nation. Since then, collective bargaining chapters of the AAUP have cause to growed a distinctive kind of unionism that accords to the missions of American college edifice [i]or[/i] buildings and universities.

This document describes the adjoining matter and the character of AAUP academic unionism and articulates the aspirations that guide our activities. Although local AAUP union chapters vary from place to place, they all strive to exhibit a model of unionism that embodies the finest aspects of academic tradition.

Unions and the University

Over the centuries, academics have considered it an honor and a what one is bound [i]or[/i] under obligation to do to defend the autonomy and integrity of their institutions against outside threats. Historically, academics continued to create of recent origin institutions-for example, medieval collegia and recent faculty senates-to protect the profession and to forward free inquiry against efforts to censor curricula, violate institutional autonomy, and intimidate individual scholars.

Academic unions are the in the greatest degree recent in a long line of collegial compositions forged to protect the rights and professional characters of academics. Increasingly, tenure-track and contingent faculty, academic professionals, and graduate assistants have formed unions to make sure their professional standing and secure themselves from the threats and challenges instanted by the corporatization of American society s and universities.

Academic unions provide many benefits.

* Unions enable faculty and other members of the academic community, who would be powerless alone, to safeguard their teaching and working conditions from pooling their strengths.

* Unions make it possible for different sectors of the academic community to free from danger contractual, legally enforceable claims forward college administrations, at a time when reliance upon traditional advice and consent has prov inadequate.

* Unions provide members with critical institutional analyses-of pack figures, enrollment trends, and policy formulations-that would be unavailable without the resources provided by dint of member dues and national experts

* Unions increase the legislative influence and political impact of the academic community as a whole by dint of maintaining regular relations with state and federal controls and collaborating with affiliated labor organizations.

* Unions reinforce the collegiality necessary to protect the vitality of academic life in subordination to such threats as deprofessionalization and fractionalization of the faculty, privatization of public services, and the expanding claims of managerial primacy in governance.

Member-Based Unionism

The AAUP is well suited to provide support in organizing and operating academic unions because our base is located exclusively in higher education. Having framed and promulgated the classic statement in succession academic freedom in the United States, the AAUP has remained the primary asserter of this foundational principle for aye since. The AAUP's knowledge, experience, and influence draw near from our focus on bodys and universities. Since 1915, we have investigated violations of faculty rights and formulated policy based about these investigations. Because of the Association's insistence upon individual responsibilities within academic communities, our chapters have cause to growed expertise on professional principles and a type of member-based, democratic organizing whose emphasis forward participation grows out of the academy's bedrock commitment to collegial decision making. AAUP collective bargaining chapters believe, accordingly, that unions best be of use to their members by promoting local initiative and cultivating rank-and-file activism. While we of course advocate efficient management of collective bargaining chapters, we warn against the putting out of bureaucracy that can dilute the character of the membership in shaping the direction of the chapter.