What is collective bargaining?
What is the NM Public Employees Collective Bargaining Law?
What is the Highlands Faculty Association's affiliation?
What can collective bargaining do for us if we can't strike?
Will a contract negotiated by the union apply to me, even if I am not a member?
Can I be forced to join the union if I don't want to?
But doesn't the Faculty Handbook already outline working conditions, course loads, and all that other stuff?
What if management doesn't want to bargain?
Why can't we be with AAUP? I thought NMFEE and NEA were for public school teachers.
What are the benefits of membership?
Will the Association replace the Faculty Senate?

• What is collective bargaining?
  As things stand now, the Board of Regents is a corporate (i.e., acts as a single body), legally-recognized entity with the right to sue and be sued, enter into contracts, etc. The Faculty is not. The individuals that make up the faculty are legal entities, but the faculty as a whole is not. Collective Bargaining changes that. The faculty form a collective for the purposes of bargaining for wages and working conditions. It puts faculty on a more equal footing, especially since, first, impasses are subject to third part binding mediation, and second, the University will be required to open their financial books to the bargaining unit. Furthermore, the independent Faculty Association is not "owned" by the University. The University can not abolish it (which previous administrations have threatened to do to the Faculty Senate).

• What is the NM Public Employees Collective Bargaining Law?
  Signed by Gov. Bill Richardson on 7 March 2003, this law makes it mandatory for management at public institutions to engage in collective bargaining with duly formed public employee bargaining units. You can find the complete text of the law (in pdf format) here.

• What is the Highlands Faculty Association's affiliation?
  The National Education Association of New Mexico (NEA-NM), located in Santa Fe (affiliated with the national organization) and the New Mexico Federation of Education Employees (NMFEE), affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which in turn is an affiliated of the AFL-CIO. We are a "merged" unit because of the way the two organizations have decided to share territory in NM. You can read our constitution and by-laws here.

• What can collective bargaining do for us if we can't strike?
  It is true that New Mexico collective bargaining law does not include the right to strike. However, it does compel both parties to engage in binding arbitration. If a stalemate in negotiations is reached, both parties must submit their latest offers to an arbitrator, whose decision is binding upon both parties. You can read the collective bargaining law if you want more details.

• Will a contract negotiated by the union apply to me, even if I am not a member?
  Yes. Any contract successfully negotiated between the NMHU Faculty Association and the administration and Board of Regents of NMHU will apply to every member of the bargaining unit, regardless of whether or not those individuals are members of the union. This means that all tenure and tenure-track faculty will be covered by the contract.

• Can I be forced to join the union if I don't want to?
  No. New Mexico is a right-to-work state, and that means that even if you are a member of the bargaining unit (in this case tenure and tenure-track faculty) you cannot be forced to join the union. The law does include a "fair share" clause. This clause states that the association can try to negotiate a fair share arrangement into any contract we negotiate. This could require non-union members of the bargaining unit to pay some amount of money to the Faculty Association. At this time the Faculty Association has no plans to include a fair share clause in any contract proposal.

• But doesn't the Faculty Handbook already outline working conditions, courseloads, and all that other stuff?
  The handbook can be changed at-will and unilaterally by management and the board. There is an argument for the contractuality of the handbook, but it is weak, and it would be legally expensive to make that point and it probably wouldn't work, given the handbook's preface. The bottom line is that the handbook is not a contract per se. It does not have the power of a contract.

• What if management doesn't want to bargain?
  Six years ago, management walked away from the table when it because clear that the collective bargaining law would "sunset" (i.e., Gary Johnson would let it die). Now that the collective bargaining law has been signed by Gov. Richardson management can no longer refuse to negotiate. (It's worth noting that management at the City of Las Vegas and the two school systems all respected the employees' wish to enter collective bargaining; only NMHU refused. They no longer have that option.)

• Why can't we be with AAUP? I thought NMFEE and NEA were for public school teachers. The Faculty Association is part of a "merged" unit with NMFEE and NEA. The NMFEE is nationally affiliated with the AFT. The AFT has many, many higher education contracts with many different types of colleges and universities They have a complete unit devoted to higher education. You can read about AFT's work in behalf of higher education here. The idea that the AFT is only for K-12 teachers just is not true; indeed, Albert Einstein was an AFT member and an advocate of faculty unionization. The fact is that NM has not developed higher education AFT units because until now we did not have the statutory support (some states have had public employee bargaining laws since the 1950s. Could this be related to the broad gap between personal income when one compares NM with other states?).

  As for the NEA: they are actually the largest higher education association representing 100,000 higher education employees, both faculty and other workers. Like the AAUP and the AFT, they also are involved in promoting policies and defending tenure. In fact, the AAUP, the AFT, and the NEA all have very similar policies regarding academic freedom and tenure. These concepts are not the sole property of the AAUP. They originate, to some extent, with the philosopher John Dewey, who served as president of both the AAUP and the AFT at various times.

• What are the benefits of membership?
  Mainly, legal assistance should you become the object of any action on the part of management that affects your employment status (i.e., they try to fire you). This assistance is like car insurance: it only works in advance, and unfortunately, it is defensive. It can't be invoked to preempt an anticipated attack.

• Will the Association replace the Faculty Senate?
  No, no no! The two organizations have different purposes. The Association is concerned with employment rights and compensation. The Senate is concerned with professional standards and academic programs. There is some overlap, but seems to me the two organizations could develop a healthy symbiosis.

  Thanks to Mike Carroll and Steve Williams for contributing much of the information on this page.

If you have questions or comments about the NMHU Faculty Association or the collective bargaining process, you can email our President, Tom Ward, at