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 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

FSU faculty voted 736 – 33 to retain UFF representation in 2003

How 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

UFF-FSU Rally in Support of Bargaining Team, 2006

Find Your Voice at FSU

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

Prior Research on Union Commitment and ParticipationA few central findings with many variations

All links are positive except Job Satisfaction => Union Commitment is negative.

BKS Integrative Model (Bamberger et al. 1999) sums up meta-analysis of prior studies’ findings.

Our Model of Lay Activism

Job Satisfaction

Instrumentality

Union Attitude

Controls (Longevity, Tenure)

Activism Past Year Next Year

Activism Context(department level)

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)

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.

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)

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

Hart 2003: How active and involved would you say you are in your union?

0

10

20

30

40

50

Not active at all Not that active Fairly active Very active

Which of the following best describes your level of activity in the UFF-FSU Chapter during the past year?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Not Active At All Not Very Active Somew hat Active Very Active

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

Hart 2003: How interested would you personally be in working through your union to help nonunion workers

to organize and gain union representation?

01020304050

Not interested Just somewhatinterested

Fairly interested Very interested

How interested would you be in volunteering to help the UFF-FSU Chapter in the next year?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Not Interested Just Somew hatInterested

Fairly Interested Very Interested

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

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

Leaders' Ratings of Activism Weightings

(Subjective Weights)Raters

Activism Component 1 2 3 4 Avg

Active on Executive Council 30 12 25 30 24.3

Recruiting Reward Claim 15 13 20 10 14.5

UFF Senate 15 25 10 10 15.0

UFF Senate Alternate 5 6 5 5 5.3

Fate-of-the-State Rally Planning 15 30 20 15 20.0

Ratification Voting Volunteer 10 10 15 15 12.5

Volunteer Distribution Network 10 4 5 15 8.5

100 100 100 100

Correlations for Individual-Level Past Activism and Activism Intentions Models (N=151)Department-Level Activism Indices Also Shown

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 81 Past Activism

2 Activism Intent 0.55

3 Job Satisfaction -0.19 -0.20

4 Instrumentality 0.19 0.27 -0.03

5 Union Attitude 0.25 0.28 -0.04 0.78

6 Union Longevity 0.24 0.14 -0.06 0.08 0.11

7 Tenure -0.02 -0.10 -0.19 0.07 0.02 0.34

8 Global Activism 0.19 0.20 -0.09 0.12 0.16 0.12 0.01

9 Unit Wt Activism Index 0.28 0.23 -0.07 0.12 0.15 0.14 -0.01 0.85

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).

OLS Regression Results for Past Activism and Activism Intent, N=151Standardized Betas and Summary Statistics

Ind. Vars.\ DVs: Past Intent Past Intent

Job Satisfaction -0.18* -0.21* -0.18* -0.21*

Instrumentality 0.03 0.17+ 0.02 0.17+

Union Attitude 0.18* 0.11 0.17+ 0.11

Union Longevity 0.24* 0.15* 0.22* 0.14*

Tenure -0.14 -0.20 -0.13 -0.19

Global Activism Index 0.12+ 0.12+

Unit Wt Activism Index 0.21* 0.16*

Adj. R2 0.13 0.15 0.16 0.16

F Ratio 4.88* 5.44* 5.84* 5.78*

* :.05 level or better; +: .10 level or better, one-tailed tests for regression coefficients

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”

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