National Center

The National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions (National Center) is a national labor-management research center housed in and supported by Hunter College, City University of New York.

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Thank You for a Successful 52nd Annual National Conference

The theme of this year's annual conference was Unity in Defense of Higher Education and Collective Bargaining. The program was designed to help build an alliance of stakeholders within higher education to protect and defend our shared fundamental values in these extraordinary times.

We are grateful to Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers, Lynn Pasquerella, President, American Association of Colleges and Universities and moderator Adrienne Lu, Senior Reporter, The Chronicle of Higher Education, for the keynote discussion on unity in defense of higher education and the professions, which began the conference.

We are also grateful to the speakers who participated in the conference plenary discussion: Robert J. Jones, Chancellor, The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Charles Toombs, President, California Faculty Association, Lorelle L. Espinosa, Higher Education Program Director, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Nancy Cantor, President, Hunter College, CUNY, and moderator Adrianna J. Kezar, Professor, Higher Education and Director, Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California.

The success of the conference would not have been possible without the support and assistance of Hunter College President Cantor, the National Center Board of Advisors, along with the staff at Roosevelt House, the CUNY Graduate Center, and our conference staff and volunteers.

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52nd Annual Conference Sponsors

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Purchase the Commemorative 52nd Annual Conference T-shirt

To help support the National Center's mission, research and program, we encourage you to purchase a Commemorative 52nd Annual Conference t-shirt. The shirts are USA made, printed in a union shop, and 100% cotton.

Direct any questions to: msavares@hunter.cuny.edu

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Become a Conference Sponsor or Program Advertiser to Celebrate Our 53rd Annual Conference and Support Our Research

To help celebrate the National Center’s 53rd annual conference, we encourage higher education institutions, unions, law firms, and companies to become a sponsor of our 2026 annual conference. For sponsorship information, refer to our Sponsorship Opportunities document.

Through a conference sponsorship you will demonstrate support for the National Center’s continuing labor-management mission and research agenda.

Another important way to celebrate the National Center’s 53rd annual conference and demonstrate support for our mission and research is for your institution, union, law firm, organization or company to place an advertisement in the conference program. For more information on ad placement, refer to our Ad Order form.

Please email us with any questions at: msavares@hunter.cuny.edu.

Recent Publications

Anti-Discrimination Clauses in Higher Education Collective Bargaining Agreements

The National Center is pleased to announce its latest publication: Anti-Discrimination Clauses in Higher Education Collective Bargaining Agreements. The study is based on research that led to the publication in September of our 2024 Directory of Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Higher Education. The purpose of this study is to assist negotiators, labor representatives, and administrators in developing, amending, and implementing anti-bias contract provisions.

The study includes excerpted anti-discrimination text from 30 collective bargaining agreements negotiated by different nationally-affiliated unions and institutions at all levels of higher education from across the country involving tenured and tenure track faculty, non-tenure track faculty, postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers, and graduate student employees. For each contract, the monograph includes the contract's anti-discrimination clause and the relevant negotiated procedure concerning enforcement when the contract does not permit, limits, or modifies the use of the standard grievance-arbitration procedure to enforce the anti-discrimination clause. In addition, the monograph includes a hyperlink to each contract to permit the contextualization of the excerpted provisions within the terms of the entire agreement.

Key Findings:

While most anti-discrimination clauses explicitly prohibit discrimination based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, and union activity, there are wide differences with respect to other protected categories.
Over the course of time, anti-discrimination clauses have changed, reflecting the historical context during which they were negotiated. Examples of those changes over the years are prohibitions against discrimination based on civil union status, HIV status, and Vietnam-era veteran status.
Recent contract clauses have expanded protections against discrimination to include caste; citizenship status; immigration status; ancestry; marital or parental status; status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking; gender expression; gender identity; genetic information; height; weight; arrest record; military status; veteran status; or unfavorably discharged from military service. Only one contract has an anti-discrimination clause limited to prohibiting discrimination based on union activity.
Certain contracts expand upon sex as a protected category to explicitly address sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, as well as faculty-student relationships. The most detailed definitions of sexual harassment, with special procedures for investigating and remedying sexual harassment complaints under Title IX and anti-discrimination clauses, are in contracts involving postdoctoral scholars and graduate student employees.
A significant difference among the contracts is the agreed-upon means of enforcement. Some contracts permit discrimination claims to be processed under the regular grievance-arbitration procedure. Others modify those procedures for handling discrimination issues and some agreements exclude alleged violations of the anti-discrimination clause from the grievance process. Lastly, some parties have opted to condition the arbitration of a discrimination grievance on the employee waiving her or his rights to pursue statutory discrimination claims in court or other external forums.

Download the Report on Anti-Discrimination Clauses
Order a Hard Copy of the Report
Download the Publication Copy

Advance Praise for the National Center’s Report on Anti-Discrimination Clauses in Higher Education CBAs

Collective bargaining offers unions and institutions of higher education a mechanism for establishing comprehensive, legally binding anti-discrimination provisions. In contrast to aspirational declarations, negotiated contracts can manifest concrete commitments to equitable practices and equal opportunity. This important new study by the National Center provides valuable insights into this domain. The research highlights exemplary and innovative contractual language addressing discrimination, as well as other collaborative approaches undertaken by unions and administrators to combat discriminatory practices in academic settings. The study's findings are particularly relevant in the current sociopolitical climate, where diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives on college campuses face increasing scrutiny and opposition. By codifying anti-discrimination measures within collective bargaining agreements, institutions and unions can establish a robust framework for maintaining equitable practices, even in the face of external pressures.
— Ana Avendaño, Visiting Associate Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law

Anti-Discrimination Clauses in Higher Education Collective Bargaining Agreements will be an extremely powerful bargaining tool in pursuit of well-tailored examples of anti-discrimination contract provisions relevant to particular workplaces. The contractual anti-discrimination provisions concretely and efficiently presented in this work will carve out joint union-employer commitments to rid workplaces of arbitrary and pernicious discrimination. Picking up where legislatures leave off, these clauses will help unions and institutions build upon state and federal legislative foundations of justice. I cannot recommend this work highly enough.
— Michael C. Duff, Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law and co-director of the Wefel Center for Employment Law

Drawing on the treasure trove of the National Center’s 2024 repository of collective bargaining agreements, this monograph provides tools for both unions and employers in higher education. It is an excellent resource for negotiating provisions aimed at preventing, eliminating, and remedying employment discrimination in colleges and universities. With its many examples of contract provisions, the monograph can be used by negotiators to go above and beyond statutory minimums to create a collective bargaining agreement that advances towards the goal of inclusive, fair, and just institutions of higher education.
— Risa L. Lieberwitz, Professor of Labor and Employment Law, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University

2024 Directory of Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Institutions of Higher Education

The National Center is pleased to announce the publication of the 2024 Directory of Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Higher Education on the scope of higher education unionization involving faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate and undergraduate student employees. The 2024 Directory includes data and analysis concerning over 900 collective bargaining relationships in higher education through January 1, 2024, and hyperlinks to 813 recent contracts in higher education.

Download the 2024 Directory
Download the Hard Copy of the 2024 Directory

Advance Praise for the 2024 Directory

The 2024 Directory of Bargaining Agents and Contracts in Institutions of Higher Education is an invaluable resource for the field. At the Delphi Project, we have found data to be one of the most important levers for change. Change agents will now have access to data for over 900 collective bargaining relationships and 813 contracts that shed light on ways to improve the working conditions in higher education. The analysis in the 2024 Directory demonstrates the growth of unions by region, institutional type and employee category. The growth of non-tenure track faculty, postdocs, academic researchers, graduate and undergraduate students shows how unionization is becoming a tactic of choice for change.
— Adrianna Kezar, Professor and Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education and the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success, University of Southern California

This comprehensive and timely report and update on developments in collective bargaining in higher education provides a treasure trove of data and an inventory of contracts that will serve as invaluable resources to researchers and practitioners working in this sector. Bravo to the army it took to collect, assemble, summarize, and make available all these useful data.
— Thomas A. Kochan, Professor Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management and Institute for Work and Employment Research

The first step towards better labor conditions in academia is knowing the labor conditions of academia. By collecting a broad swath of the collective bargaining agreements that cover academic employees today, the National Center’s 2024 Directory sets us on the right path. The 2024 Directory’s painstakingly gathered yet highly accessible data is an invaluable resource for everyone interested in learning more about employment relationships in academia, from the campus organizer to the scholar of higher education to the parent or legislator.
— Deepa Das Acevedo, JD, PhD, Associate Professor of Law, Emory University

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