USC faculty rally in support of unionizing with new, high-placed city allies

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Set us as preferred USC faculty rallied Wednesday to demand the university recognize their union with two new political allies on board — Mayor Karen Bass and her re-election campaign opponent Councilmember Nithya Raman — amid a growing dispute at the city’s largest employer.A crowd of at least 200 faculty, students and supporters gathered at Tommy Trojan on campus Wednesday afternoon, holding signs saying “Union Now!” and “Respect Faculty Now,” and chanted “Drop the appeal! Elections matter!”USC, which has opposed the two-year effort to unionize thousands of adjunct, part-time and non-tenure track faculty, has turned to the nation’s highest labor board to overturn the unionization vote.

The university argues those faculty hold management rights through their role in shared governance — exempting them from unionizing under federal labor law — and that the bargaining unit, which spans instructors to pharmacists and therapists, is too broad.Shared governance is the system in which faculty and administrators share authority over how a university is run.Faculty influence over big-picture decisions such as budgets and top appointments has declined nationally over the past two decades, and at USC, professors have complained that faculty input is often only advisory and can be overridden.Bass sent USC President Beong-Soo Kim a letter this week urging him to drop the university’s legal challenge to a June vote to form a union and to “bargain in good faith.” Raman spoke at the rally, as did city attorney candidate Marissa Roy and state Sen.

Lola Smallwood-Cuevas.“I’m so honored to stand with all of you who are fighting for your basic rights as workers,” Raman told the crowd.She noted that 40% of faculty nationally are adjuncts, like many of those in the crowd, with lower pay, fewer benefits and les...