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Community College Journal of Research and Practice

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Reconcilable Differences: Conflict and Collegiality in a Unionized Community College Environment

Matthew Hartley

To cite this article: Matthew Hartley (2010) Reconcilable Differences: Conflict and Collegiality in a Unionized Community College Environment, Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 34:4, 318-336, DOI: 10.1080/10668920701382427

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10668920701382427

Published online: 03 Mar 2010.

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RECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES: CONFLICT AND COLLEGIALITY IN A UNIONIZED COMMUNITY COLLEGE ENVIRONMENT

Matthew Hartley

Graduate School of Education, Higher Education Division, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Faculty unions are a prominent, though a comparatively recent, feature of American higher education. Today, a vast majority of community colleges have a unionized faculty. A number of researchers in the 1970s speculated that the presence of unions signaled the end of collegial shared governance and that interactions between administrators and unions would become increasingly adversarial. Subsequent experience suggests that the dire predictions were overblown. However, little institution-level research has been done to understand how unionization has affected academic governance. This study examines the governance system at a large, urban community college. The findings indicate that though at times relations are contentious, there are levels of conflict. Further there are a number of factors that tend to mitigate conflict and allow for collegial decision making. These include utilizing personal ties between members of the administration and the union, sharing data openly and also working together to collectively make sense of ‘‘the facts’’ before discussing possible resolutions to the presenting issue, and establishing an institutional norm that values finding solutions rather than scoring political points.

Faculty unions are a prominent, though a comparatively recent, feature of American higher education. In 1935, the U.S. Congress passed the Wagner act, which gave nonmanaging employees the right to organize and to bargain collectively (Garbarino, 1975). However, it was not until the 1960s and 1970s, at precisely the point when the labor movement had begun to show signs of waning, that the

Address correspondence to Matthew Hartley, Graduate School of Education, University of

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6216. E-mail: [email protected]

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 34: 318–336, 2010

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1066-8926 print=1521-0413 online

DOI: 10.1080/10668920701382427

318

American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and the National Education Associ- ation (NEA) began helping faculty members organize (Chait, 2002). These efforts met with considerable success. By 1984, a quarter of all public two-year community college faculties were unionized, and unions represented more than 160,000 faculty members (Kearney, 1992). By 1998, that percentage had grown to 94% (Rhoades, 1998).

Early educational researchers speculated a great deal about the influence of unions and collective bargaining on academic govern- ance (Birnbaum, 1980; Garbarino, 1975; Garbarino, Feller, & Finkin, 1977; Ladd & Lipset, 1973). Many feared they would make academic governance more adversarial. Subsequent experience suggests that the more-dire predictions were overblown. However, little institution-level research has been done to understand how unioniza- tion has affected academic governance. In his historical study of unionization at three public research universities, Arnold (2000) points to the need for developing detailed case studies in this area. Few contemporary accounts exist, particularly of community col- leges, though they are the institutional type where faculty unions are most prevalent. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the governance system of Eris Community College (ECC), a large, urban institution with a unionized faculty. The question guid- ing this inquiry had to do with factors that promote or mitigate con- flict between administrators and faculty in a unionized environment? (Pseudonyms are used throughout the case, and certain distinguishing characteristics of the college have been altered to protect its identity.)

Soon after the faculty of the City College of New York (CUNY) voted to form a collective bargaining unit in 1969, scholars began to explore the impact of collective bargaining on institutional decision making and organizational culture (Angell, 1973; Birnbaum, 1980; Carr & VanEyck, 1973; Garbarino, 1975; Garbarino et al., 1977; Ladd & Lipset, 1973; Leslie, 1975; Leslie & Satryb, 1974). Many raised concerns about collective bargaining’s potential to erode collegial decision making and replace it with rigid forms of negoti- ation. Garbarino (1975) warned:

Collective bargaining usually brings with it an array of practices that

have evolved over the decades of experience with bargaining in the private sector . . . These include exclusive bargaining rights; written, comprehensive contracts; formal grievance procedures; third-party

intervention in grievance settlements and negotiation of impasses;

compulsory financial contributions; and strikes and other direct

pressure tactics (p. 27).

Reconcilable Differences in a Unionized College 319

Birnbaum (1980) went so far as to predict that collective bargaining would result in ‘‘an escalating spiral of destructive confrontation that [faculty members and administrators] do not support and that they feel helpless to control’’ (p. xiii).

However, faculty unions were established on a considerably differ- ent basis than their counterparts in industry. Rather than fighting for equitable wages and safer working conditions, the central issue lead- ing to the unionization of faculty was a desire for greater voice in institutional matters (DeCew, 2003). This sentiment echoes a 1967 study of ‘‘faculty discontent’’ sponsored by the American Association for Higher Education, which found its primary source to be an inad- equate role in governance (Garbarino et al., 1977). A more recent study (Elmuti & Kathawala, 1991) found that faculty unions continue to place greater emphasis on core academic issues such as academic freedom, procedures for faculty reappointment, and teacher evalu- ation than on ‘‘bread and butter’’ union issues, such as salary and benefits. In sum, a primary motivator for unions has been and con- tinues to be maintaining a strong voice in institutional matters.

Nevertheless, misgivings about unions endure. DeCew (2003) asserts that ‘‘Administrators and other officials with oversight usually view unionization with suspicion, believing contracts restrict their discretion and flexibility and lead faculty to be more antagonistic toward the administration’’ (p. 21). Others have been more caustic calling unions ‘‘recalcitrant, self-interested and out of touch with the times’’ (Monaghan, 1995). Opponents argue that unions con- strain organizational efficiency. The collective bargaining agreement renders in maddening detail how policies and procedures must be fol- lowed. Garbarino (1975) observed that early unions had tended to put an ‘‘emphasis on the formalization of policy, an attention to fine procedural detail, and a requirement of consistency of treatment and evaluation quite foreign to the practice of the traditional academic bureaucracy’’ (p. 256). The result is that institutional decision making is unduly hampered. ‘‘[Unions] slow down processes and decision making that is easier to complete in a collegial and consensus- oriented atmosphere’’ (DeCew, 2003, p. 35) A complex series of meet- ings and memoranda replace what once was accomplished by the simple handshake.

However, the merits of unions have also been described. In institu- tions where faculty had historically little say in institutional matters, unions have proved effective at increasing their participation in aca- demic governance (Garbarino, 1975). The contract establishes clear cut rules for communication between key constituents (Gellman, 1998). Unions are also an effective organizational strategy for

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maintaining a collective faculty voice when dealing with management (Elmuti & Kathawala, 1991), thus preventing wily administrators from playing one department off another. Unions also offer a measure of protection to faculty members. Gary Rhoades’ (1998) research on ‘‘managed professionals’’ suggests that union contracts negotiate free- dom, autonomy, and insulation from management, although he cau- tions that that their power does have limitations.

Do unions produce governance gridlock and mitigate collegiality? This study examines the relations between administrators and union- ized faculty in a particular setting in order to identify the range of factors that promote or impede collegial decision making. Although a study of a single institution cannot produce generalizable findings, identifying these factors helps lay some conceptual groundwork for future comparative studies of unionized environments and reveals important implications for practitioners.

METHOD

Eris Community College is an institution of 6,500 students in an urban area in the eastern United States. ECC was selected through purposeful sampling (Chein, 1981). It is typical of many community colleges. It was founded in the late 1960s to serve local, first gener- ation college students. Like many community colleges, it has seen its mission expand from that of a transfer institution (providing the first two years of a baccalaureate degree) to one also dedicated to providing adult education, ‘‘precollege instruction’’ (remediation), and professional associate’s degrees.

To ensure that the interviews conducted were ‘‘as representative as possible of the individuals, groups and situations under study’’ (Harrison, 1994, p. 68), participants were selected from the senior administration, middle management, the faculty union leadership, and members of the faculty (full-time and part-time). During an initial round of interviews, additional names were identified, a vari- ation of the snowballing or chain technique (Patton, 1990; Bogdan & Bilken, 1992). In all, 16 people from ECC participated in the study over a six-month period. Conversations lasted between 50 and 90 minutes, the average length of time being approximately one hour. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. I met with three indivi- duals (two senior administrators and one member of the union leadership) a second time at the end of the study to solicit feedback on the veracity of my understanding of governance at ECC, a form of member checking (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992).

Reconcilable Differences in a Unionized College 321

The interviews were semistructured (Rubin & Rubin, 1995), and the protocol solicited reflections on work life at ECC and how academic decisions are made. Several critical incidents were identified early in the process, and specific probes were conducted in later interviews to gather multiple perspectives on these events. A separate protocol was devised for administrators, faculty, and union leaders. Facts gathered in early interviews were crosschecked during subsequent interviews. Use of the ‘‘overlap method’’ (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 314) proved to be an invaluable means of gaining multiple perspec- tives on key events and issues.

Erikson (1986) notes that a primary type of ‘‘evidentiary inadequacy’’ is ‘‘inadequate variety in kinds of evidence’’ (p. 140). Institutional documents were an important additional source of data. Examples include the collective bargaining agreement, materials sent to the union membership over the past year, ECC’s latest strategic plan, development materials, the course catalog, and admissions materials. The documents corroborated many of the details provided by the participants in the interviews. These documents, the transcripts of the interviews, field notes (taken on site), and analytic memos (reflections about the institution off-site) constituted the data set. I performed ‘‘multiple readings of the entire set of field notes’’ (Erikson, 1986, p. 149), identified and coded emergent themes, and adjusted the coding rubric as the analysis moved forward and patterns emerged (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Rubin & Rubin, 1995).

CASE: ERIS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

The Historic Roots of ECC’s Governance System

Eris Community College opened its doors in 1969 housed in a vacant department store. ‘‘We used to be called ‘the college with the escalator’ by people in the area,’’ recalled one senior faculty member. The found- ing president, Richard Dawson, was in many respects a remarkable leader. The current chair of ECC’s humanities division recalled:

Dawson used to say our work will bear fruit in three generations. He’d

say we’re bringing in students whose parents have never gone to

college and many of these students won’t finish. But they’ll go on

and have families and their children will have parents who at least

went to college. Then, their children will have grandparents who went

to college, parents who finished college, and we will have helped

transform this city.

322 M. Hartley

It was a potent vision that attracted a group of young, idealistic faculty members in the early years. One remarked:

I remember being in graduate school and wondering if I really wanted

to work at a liberal arts college and wear tweed jackets with elbow

patches. [. . .] Then this job opened up and I applied and I remember meeting with the chair of this division. He was so excited about the

possibilities of this work—his enthusiasm just drew me in.

Dawson’s leadership in the early years was paternalistic—firm but benevolent—‘‘father knows best,’’ as one administrator put it. Dawson’s firm hand was understandable given his wealth of adminis- trative experience, a young faculty, and the prodigious challenges facing the founding of a new college. As time went on, Dawson became impatient to prove ECC’s success and began making unilateral deci- sions. Many of those young, idealistic faculty members came to view Dawson as despotic. ‘‘I used to get Dawson and Nixon mixed up in my head,’’ quipped one. In the spring of 1971, Dawson hired John O’Neil as academic vice president. A senior faculty member recalled: ‘‘The faculty senate was never consulted, all of a sudden this guy just showed up.’’ Even more troubling, O’Neil announced at his first fac- ulty meeting that the administration would, from then on, select all textbooks for the faculty. He also presented a new academic structure and a new curriculum, one heavily focused on professional training.

O’Neil’s ham-fisted effort at centralization galvanized the faculty. A faculty member who attended that meeting recalled: ‘‘A bunch of us marched out of there and right into one of our offices—we were packed in there. We talked about what ECC was supposed to be and we said he can’t force us to do that, we’ll start a union!’’ An assistant professor at the time (now a union leader) recalled: ‘‘It was exciting, we were young and it was the 60s and there were pro- tests and people cared about preserving their rights and having a say.’’ A short time later, the faculty voted overwhelmingly to form a collective bargaining unit with the AFT.

Dawson had been generous with regards to faculty workloads, sal- ary, and benefits. An administrator noted: ‘‘This meant that the nego- tiations, instead of focusing on things like benefits, turned to the union’s role in the management of the college.’’ What emerged was a governance system that gave faculty members the right to consult on a wide variety of management issues. A union member explained:

All important policies have to go through the governance structure.

The union can file a grievance and use the labor law to enforce the

Reconcilable Differences in a Unionized College 323

faculty’s right to participate in governance. We have a legally binding

document that was agreed to by both parties and has the force of the

state’s labor law behind it. It puts the faculty on a more equal plane

than they would be in another non-unionized setting.

A series of standing committees were formed to ‘‘shadow’’ (to use the union’s language) each major administrative function at ECC (e.g., student affairs, academic affairs, finance) with the membership divided between administrators and union members (as well as student representatives). The union members from the standing committees along with the elected union officers formed an execu- tive council. According to the collective bargaining agreement, all ‘‘action items’’ (i.e., proposed policy changes) had to be brought forward to the relevant standing committee. The administration could not approach the executive committee directly. The executive committee, upon receiving an action item, could either sent it back for additional work or approve it and send it forward to the president. The president had the authority to veto any item that he or she saw as undesirable. Although the executive committee had recommendatory power only, it could sideline proposed policies and never send them on to the president, a de facto veto. The faculty also voted to disband the senate and rely on the union for representation.

Dawson was personally devastated by the faculty’s decision to unionize. A colleague recalled: ‘‘He became somewhat embattled and embittered. It was like kids biting the hands that fed them from his perspective. ‘Look at all I did for them, all the opportunities I created for them and then they did this to me.’’’ Dawson remained ECC’s president for nearly two decades and oversaw the construc- tion of a permanent campus in the heart of the city. However, rela- tions between the president and the union were distant and inimical. Dawson was succeeded by an ill-fated president who lasted only two years.

In 1988, Elizabeth Atkins, provost of a small community college in the Midwest, was hired by the board to develop ECC’s academic pro- grams. Hard nosed and uncompromising, Atkins ‘‘managed’’ the union by working around it. This was possible in large part because, with the exception of one difficult year, ECC was in an especially strong position fiscally. Atkins directed university resources to fac- ulty members (many of whom were dues paying members of the union) who were particularly productive or interested in championing curricular change. ‘‘She got them excited about what they were doing,’’ her former chief planning officer recalled.

324 M. Hartley

She created a system of faculty scholars and encouraged them to pub-

lish and gave them a lot of national visibility. She made people feel

good about it. She created an inner circle around her. If you were per-

forming the way she wanted, she made it fun. She created a reward

structure for unusual performance and did a lot of things that were

not illegal in terms of the contract but they were extra-contract. A lot of faculty members were tired of the animosity of the 70s. It was

really interesting, some of the people who had been the most rabid

in terms of their anti-administration or anti-institutional perspective

who were bright and well published, she brought into the fold and they

did some really interesting things.

Atkins left ECC to assume another presidency after four pro- ductive years. After a years’ search, Kurt Callen was hired in 1993. A senior administrator described Callen as ‘‘the kind of apple pie guy that everyone loved. He was a great college athlete so he could talk about that with board members. Very quickly he got on the short list for social events in the city, which is really important for the presi- dent of a public college like this.’’ The union leadership saw Callen as a ‘‘breath of fresh air.’’ He respected the union’s role in governance and publicly called them ‘‘partners’’ whose participation was essential if ECC were to achieve great things. By Callen’s presidency, the city’s school system was in crisis. The students coming to ECC were less prepared academically. More adults were attending. ‘‘Most of our students work and few of them got the secondary education they deserve. Many of our incoming students are academically at about the level of a twelve year old,’’ remarked one senior faculty member. With the full support of the union, Callen developed a series of bold programmatic initiatives to better serve these students. Sadly, his vision languished because of budgetary crisis in the city. Five years into his presidency, the beloved Callen suffered a heart attack, and a year later he died.

In 1999, a search committee comprised of board members, faculty members, and administrators recommended Walter Stevenson, prov- ost of a small community college in the Midwest to be ECC’s next president. Stevenson’s disciplinary home had been in the humanities. He had led his previous institution through significant curricular change. One administrator described him as ‘‘an amalgamation of Elizabeth and Kurt.’’

His instincts are internal because he’s out of academic affairs but he’s

also extremely good at external relationships and has continued where

Kurt left off, building ties. The thing that has been the biggest

Reconcilable Differences in a Unionized College 325

challenge for Walt—there’s a cynicism that’s developed among the faculty—we’ve had three different presidents in short order and there’s been interims between them and probably five AVPs [academic

vice presidents] in that time. There’s a cynicism—it doesn’t matter who’s at the top, they’re going to change soon anyway and particularly

because the president before Kurt didn’t have a vision and Kurt had one but didn’t have enough money to do it, there’s not a sense that

presidents can make a difference because the last president that had

both money and time on task was Elizabeth Atkins.

The Union at ECC Today

Active participation in the union is somewhat difficult to gauge. One vice president characterizes it this way:

Among the faculty there’s a sprinkling of true believers. [. . .] Then there’s a half—I’d say a large half that are not really engaged in the union—they don’t really care who the co-presidents are they don’t care about union issues although they do get involved on the salary and fringe benefits issues. At a typical federation meeting you’ll have

50 or 60 people out of a potential group of almost 1,000 people.

Union members counter that standing committee members serve as liaisons and conduits of information to their home departments. So, though comparatively few people attend meetings, many more people are consulted in decision making.

Also, the composition of ECC’s faculty has shifted over time. Today, 40% of all courses at ECC are taught by part-time faculty members. Though there is an active part-time union, participation in on-campus activities by part-time members is spotty since most have other jobs or are teaching at multiple institutions—sometimes six per semester. Further, many of the founding members of ECC’s union—the self-described ‘‘old guard’’ are nearing retirement or have already retired. They hold perhaps half of all union leadership posi- tions. For many new faculty hires, ECC is a stepping stone and they leave after a time for other institutions. Of the ones who intend to stay, they hold somewhat different attitudes than the old guard. They are just as keen to preserve faculty voice, and they want ECC to be a strong and successful institution. However, as one member of the old guard lamented, ‘‘They aren’t as skeptical of the administration as we are, they’re more likely to assume the best intentions, which can be

326 M. Hartley

dangerous.’’ The old guard has tried to find ways to underscore the importance of the union to its members.

Just recently we had a big meeting. It’s something we’ve done every

year for the past few years. It’s partly an effort to reinforce insti- tutional memory. One of the things we do is go back to the very begin-

ning, to the creation of our governance system and talk about why we

have it. And it’s also in part to remind people to be active—to not wait for initiative to come from the top administrators.

Members of the old guard view the collective bargaining agreement with reverence, even awe. In discussing issues addressed in the docu- ment (which is nearly 70 pages long), many are able to literally quote from it chapter and verse. It is not uncommon to hear it referred to as ‘‘our constitution.’’ The imperative to transmit this scrupulous atten- tion to procedural detail and safeguarding precedent at all costs weighs on the minds of the older union members. One of the co-chairs of the full-time faculty union stated: ‘‘I’m working on a standing committee with a young faculty member and I keep telling her ‘you need to listen up! I’ll tell you the way things are but I’m not going to be around forever!’’’ Among most members (new and old) there appears to be a robust sense of ‘‘ownership’’ in the union and the institution. One faculty union member said:

It’s like the ultimate workers co-op! We believe that it’s our institution

and governance is the way—both positively and negatively—that we make sure that the things people care about or are concerned about get a hearing and make sure the initiatives that come from the top

are appropriate.

Relations Between the Administration and the Union

Most members of the administration see the union leadership as com- mitted to the well being of the institution albeit with different (and sometimes misguided) notions about how to achieve that goal. A former union leader described these disparate world views in the following way:

There’s a conflict between the faculty and the top administration and I

think it’s because of our different views. They think of us as slow to

change, hide bound, too much referring to institutional traditions,

resistant to change and I think there’s some truth to that! But their

Reconcilable Differences in a Unionized College 327

view is exaggerated. Vice presidents come here and feel that their job

is to lead. The faculty’s response is ‘‘Who the hell are you? You just got

here!’’ I can think of five academic vice presidents in the last ten years

right off the top of my head.

Further, from the point of view of the union, much of the ‘‘change’’ is not particularly meaningful—time consuming distractions whose benefits are questionable.

We get a new vice president and they take a look around at the con-

figuration of the disciplines and so they decide to reshuffle the deck.

‘‘We’re going to make two giant divisions.’’ Then someone else comes along and says ‘‘oh my gosh these giant divisions are so bureaucratic

and unwieldy, let’s separate them into many small divisions.’’ And

then a new vice president comes and says ‘‘this is so balkanized you

people are in these tiny—let’s make two giant divisions!’ And the fac- ulty is rolling their eyes waiting for the revolving door to come around.

Senior administrators find the union’s insistence on jealously guarding precedent maddening. ‘‘The union will always try to make any decision non-precedent setting. ‘We’ve granted you an exception but we’ve not agreed to this as a general principal.’ ’’ Another admin- istrator complains:

We need fast decision making and more degrees of freedom to inno-

vate. Our governance structure gets in the way of rapid approvals.

Three months of deliberating the new accelerated learning curriculum

is a lifetime in terms of your competitive edge. There also needs to be

a greater tolerance of innovation—to deliver new courses in new ways. We have a lot of new faculty who are willing to do things differently— all we need is an environment in which that is tolerated.

The union, however, is careful to protect precedent. ‘‘They complain it’s not efficient. Well, democracy is not particularly efficient,’’ observes one active union member. Historically, the union leadership has tried to keep the administration at arm’s length. One midlevel administrator recalled a presidential initiative to bring senior admin- istrators and union leaders together to receive training on ‘‘win=win negotiating.’’ When presented with the idea, a union leader (a mem- ber of the old guard) is said to have caustically quipped: ‘‘Why? Win= lose has always worked for us before.’’

Relations often become tense during formal bargaining sessions. There is a keen desire on both sides not to appear ‘‘soft’’ because

328 M. Hartley

there are important audiences keenly interested in the outcome—the board and the faculty members (union and nonunion) who pay dues for this representation. Often these encounters produce dramatic acts of brinksmanship. One member of the administrative bargaining team explains it this way:

It’s very predictable. [The administration] wants to come in with the

least possible realistic cost but we know that we have to make conces-

sions so that the union can sell the contract to its members. It’s sort

of—how to do we get face-saving on both sides? The president and the senior staff can’t appear to give away the store. But can we give the

union something that will make it look as if they had won something?

We go on this dance for months and months. Then there’ll be an arti- ficial deadline. The union will create a crisis—it’s like a ritual. ‘‘If you don’t give us what we want, we’re going to go on strike!’’ And there’s

this last-minute need, on the part of the union, to string it out like

they’ve won the last possible concession from us. It has to take place

over the weekend so everyone can say, ‘‘My God, they’re giving up

their spring break!’’ It really does have a lot of the accoutrements of

a very ritualized performance.

Such interactions have the capacity to sour relationships. How- ever, there are a number of individuals who act as informal interme- diaries between the two groups. One notable example is the long-standing vice president for administration and planning, Pete Helm. Helm has been a constant presence among a revolving cast of senior administrators. He rose up through the faculty ranks and was tapped for an administrative post by Atkins and eventually became vice president. Union members describe Atkins as an ‘‘honest broker.’’ ‘‘I may not always agree with Pete but I’ve never thought he was trying to shaft us.’’ Helm has been tireless in his efforts to pro- vide the union with a comprehensive understanding of the college’s situation.

My philosophy has been to explain to them every conceivable piece of

information so there’s nothing about the institution that’s secret. They

know as much about our ability to pay salaries as I do! So, at least our conversations are based on fact and not on rumor and innuendo.

However, Helm concedes, ‘‘Having the same information doesn’t mean reaching the same conclusions!’’ The long-standing (and recently retired) legal counsel for ECC was close friends with several members of the ‘‘old guard.’’ One recalled, ‘‘A lot of us knew him

Reconcilable Differences in a Unionized College 329

personally. He was the type of guy you’d go out for drinks with and you could talk to him. He was funny, he was reasonable and he could even call us on things.’’ There are a few newer members of the union leadership that help bridge differences as well.

For example, union leader Anna Vallas notes, ‘‘I’m not co-chair this year but I’m still involved in trying to smooth things over a bit between the two sides over a particular issue—trying to get them to work things out.’’ An administrator from human resources described her as ‘‘a new leader, one who we can talk to. She can tell you in so many words what kinds of things they really need when there’s intense bargaining.’’

Critical Current Challenges

Increasingly, ECC’s administration is feeling pressure to operate more efficiently and to generate new revenues to offset the declining contributions by the city. Many of the opportunities for growth in instructional programs require nontraditional formats. However, the union is cautious about such ventures. An administrator explains:

We’ve had a tremendous battle with the faculty getting them to accept

any kind of variation in our calendar. We have a very traditional con-

tract that defines faculty workloads in terms of traditional semesters.

If we start having five week classes, how does that fit into the system?

Many union leaders see arguments for greater efficiency and flexi- bility as threats to the faculty’s sovereignty. One faculty member quipped: ‘‘They’re always wanting more flexibility to do what they want. ‘‘ ‘Flexibility,’ that’s the ‘f-word’ as far as we’re concerned.’’ Recently, the administration brought to the standing committee on academic affairs the issue of staffing corporate education programs. (ECC is in the process of developing training programs for local corporations.) Since many of these courses are taught out of load, the union insisted the administration select instructors based on a Byzantine 10-tiered seniority system. The president countered that they would likely lose a lucrative account if they couldn’t assure that the client would have some say in who would teach the courses— that if they had a positive experience with one instructor, the admin- istration wanted to be able to assure them that if the instructor were willing, they could do so again. The co-chair of the full-time union (a member of the old guard) was adamant that each time a teaching opportunity arose it be offered first to the individual with the highest seniority. The two sides deadlocked. Then, the union suddenly agreed

330 M. Hartley

to grant the administration a certain number of exceptions each year so they would not lose any corporate clients. When asked about the apparent concession, Pete Helm quietly commented, ‘‘Oh, I went over and a few of us met and we looked at the potential earnings for the college and what that might mean for us. We worked something out. It was a good compromise.’’

FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

The experiences at Eris Community College suggest that far from resulting in ‘‘an escalating spiral of destructive confrontation’’ as Birnbaum (1980) warned, there are instead various levels of conflict and discernable factors that tend to regulate it.

Levels of Conflict

Relations between the administration and the union at times are clearly strained. This is particularly evident during the periodic rene- gotiation of the collective bargaining agreement. Rigid posturing and acts of brinksmanship—the willingness to walk out on the other side, the threat of a strike—these are elements of a ritualized combat, one that can leave real emotional scars and adversely influence future interactions. In many other instances, we see both sides maneuvering to position themselves to achieve a desired outcome. This seems to have been the case when the president and the co-chair deadlocked over the staffing of corporate education programs. The union wanted to safeguard the seniority system, which it sees as the foundation of equitable treatment for faculty, and the president appealed to the union on the basis of lost revenues. Finally, among a subset of the administration and the union, there is mutual respect and the recog- nition that both parties are trying their best to serve the overall insti- tution. This trust allows for a measure of risk and, therefore, flexibility in the system, as was evident in the eventual brokered deal. In short, some decisions are made within the bonds of collegiality.

This range of responses conforms to the seminal work of Anatol Rapoport (1974) who has argued that there are three types of conflicts in interpersonal, organizational, and societal contexts: fights, games, and debates. In ‘‘fights,’’ opponents seek to coerce or even inflict punishment on another party, often with little concern over the consequences. ‘‘Games’’ are like a chess match and consist of maneuvering oneself (and attempting to maneuver the other player) to gain the most advantageous position. ‘‘Debates’’ are

Reconcilable Differences in a Unionized College 331

attempts to genuinely work with the other side and to use the power of ideas to shape the decision making process. What Rapoport describes is a continuum of behaviors that reflect greater or lesser organizational conflict. When a side feels it cannot get its way, it may be tempted escalate conflict. Such actions tax relationships and may even produce a backlash (the escalation Birnbaum (1980) feared). However, the case reveals a number of factors that decelerate conflict. (I am indebted to Robert Birnbaum for drawing my atten- tion to Rapoport’s framework in his 1980 book. However, although Birnbaum references the framework, he does not attempt to apply it to a particular case as I have done here.)

Factors Influencing Conflict

Broadly put, the most significant influence on levels of conflict at ECC is distance—structural, conceptual (perspective, frame, or world view), and emotional. ECC’s governance system, which prevents the senior administration from directly approaching the executive com- mittee, illustrates how organizational structures create distance. It limits person-to-person communication; the president cannot present proposals directly to the executive committee. Although this may have seemed like a necessary arrangement during Dawson’s presi- dency when personal animosity over the unionization ran high, the structurally imposed distance now enables uninformed assumption and uncharitable innuendo to poison the discourse (DiFonzo & Bordia, 1998). The union leadership’s ‘‘old guard’s’’ insistence on scrupulously following procedure and precedent has also enabled them to dampen discussion and block legitimate debate. In like man- ner, ECC’s administrative vice president’s decision to side-step con- sultation and unilaterally restructure departments fed discontent and helped create a group of ‘‘change survivors’’ (Duck, 2001) intent on waiting out the latest management fad.

Distance has also allowed for the formation of organizational subgroups (Wilkins & Ouchi, 1983) that hold discrete sets of values and norms. The union wants stability and equity; the administration desires innovation and flexibility. Such subgroups have the capacity to produce conflict in organizations (Trice & Beyer, 1993). In a real sense, the antipathy between Dawson and the union over the first two decades of ECC’s history established rigid, formal, and aloof interactions as the norm, just as Garbarino (1975) and other scholars predicted. The old guard came to see that the preservation of the collective bargaining agreement and precedent and mistrust of the administration as the surest means of preserving faculty voice.

332 M. Hartley

These concerns were perhaps understandable initially—the union in its early days had reason to mistrust and fear Dawson. But it is also the case that a common enemy is a powerful means of building cohesion within a subgroup (Lutz, 1988). A menacing administration provided the old guard with an iron clad rationale for drumming up support for the union. The belief system perpetuates itself in that it colors how members of the subgroup interpret the actions of the others (Bolman & Deal, 1997; Trice & Beyer, 1993; Weick, 1995). Thus, we find a leader insistently warning his more-junior colleague about the dangers of giving administrators the benefit of the doubt. The conceptual distance provided by the resulting subculture enables union leaders to emotionally distance themselves from their adminis- trative counterparts, which makes it easier for them to employ coerc- ive tactics.

That said, ECC’s experience also points to practical ways in which more-collegial decision making can occur. (See Table 1). Among the most important are individuals that have been able to bridge both groups. Pete Helm, for example, has been remarkably effective at working with the union leadership. His legitimacy derives in part from the fact that he was a faculty member at ECC long before becoming an administrator, and he has given his career to the college, a testament to his commitment to its well-being. Helm has been com- mitted to transparency—in budgetary matters and in the strategic planning process. However, rather than simply passing over spread sheets he has made the important additional step of working with the union leadership to jointly make sense of the facts and to ensure they understand the very real budgetary and fiscal constraints facing ECC. This reduces the uncertainty in the interactions between the two groups by establishing a common conception of the presenting issue. Like Helm, Anna Vallas, has been able to reach across to the

Table 1. Factors mitigating conflict

. Identifying connectors who have close professional (or even personal) relationships with individuals from another subgroup.

. Utilizing informal venues (e.g., friendship networks) to create greater flexibility in the decision making structure and to foster two-way communication.

. Being transparent with institutional information, including budgetary and fiscal constraints.

. Having connectors with the other group to analyze information jointly in order to arrive at a shared interpretation of ‘‘the facts’’ prior to discussions.

. Making an explicit institutional commitment to finding common solutions rather than scoring political points.

. Pay attention to shifts in personnel to identify others committed to collaboration.

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administration during negotiations and work behind the scenes to provide important information about the other side’s concerns, which prevents misunderstandings. Connectors like Helm and Vallas are effective (and maintain their legitimacy) through their evident com- mitment to rendering mutually acceptable decisions, never publicly scoring political points. Much of this work is done quietly. Thus, Helm generously characterized the evident capitulation of the union in staffing of corporate education: ‘‘We worked something out. It was a good compromise.’’

CONCLUSION

Helm, Vallas and a number of others have found ways to create flexi- bility in the decision-making process by establishing alternative avenues of communication. Their actions have prevented misunder- standing during sensitive times of negotiation. It seems quite possible that such actions will bear fruit as a new generation of union leaders assumes control. Though they are as committed to safeguarding fac- ulty voice as the old guard, they take at face value the notion that in today’s competitive environment ECC must be highly responsive if it is to remain viable. It may be that ECC, through the work of Helm, Vallas and others, will be able to permanently reduce the structural, conceptual, and emotional distance inherent in ECC’s current organi- zational system. ECC may then be able to create an organization with voice for all constituencies and flexibility to better serve its students and society.

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