Part-Time GW Faculty Asked to Vote on Representation

Sept. 21, 2004

Members of GW’s part-time faculty will vote next month to decide whether the Service Employees International Union, Local 500 (SEIU Local 500) will be their exclusive representative for purposes of collective bargaining. The mail ballot election runs Oct. 4–19. If the union is successful, GW would be the first institution of higher education that SEIU Local 500 has ever represented. Currently SEIU Local 500 represents food service workers, building and maintenance workers, paraeducators, bus operators and Head Start workers.

To be eligible to vote, part-time faculty must have taught at least one credit-bearing course at GW during two of the following four semesters: Spring 2003, Fall 2003, Spring 2004 and Fall 2004. Part-time faculty members in the School of Medicine and Health Sciences and at the University’s Hampton Roads Campus are excluded. Based on these eligibility criteria, there will be some part-time faculty who are eligible to vote in the election even if they are not teaching in the current Fall 2004 semester.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will oversee the election, which will be decided by a simple majority of ballots cast, not a majority of the group the union seeks to represent. Ballots with postage-paid return envelopes will be mailed to eligible voters. Voters will be asked to simply mark “Yes” or “No” if they would like the Service Employees to represent them. All ballots will be secret with voters being asked to only sign the outside of the return envelope. The ballots are expected to be counted on Oct. 22.

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu