Following months of pushback from the university, USC’s research, teaching, practitioner and clinical-track (RTPC) faculty will vote to form a union with United Auto Workers (UAW). The workers’ election was approved by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), United Faculty-UAW (UF-UAW) said Wednesday.
The NLRB’s decision states that all RTPC faculty, including full-time, part-time and adjunct members across most USC schools will have the right to vote in the election starting April 24.
Those ineligible to vote include all faculty employed at the Keck School of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, all visiting faculty, and all faculty permanently employed outside of Los Angeles County, as well as all part-time and adjunct faculty in the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
The outcome will be determined by the majority of votes cast. Over 2,900 faculty members are eligible to participate.
The UF-UAW Organizing Committee originally requested a hybrid voting option, so that as many faculty as possible could vote.
The UF-UAW Organizing Committee announcement outlined that after negotiations with USC, the regional NLRB determined that workers will vote by mail.
Ballots will be sent to faculty on April 24 and are due on May 15. The votes will be counted at the regional NLRB office on May 18.
Some RTPC professors hope their vote to unionize will ensure secure employment and salary transparency.
“Number one to me is job security, knowing that we’re going to be hired back the next year so we can plan our lives,” Debra De Liso, a part-time lecturer at the School of Dramatic Arts, said. “Number two is transparency, with salaries and raises and promises actually being met.”
Others seek protections for employer-sponsored benefits that were either previously established or lost.
“I would really like to be able to lock things in place that I do like about my working conditions at USC,” Janis Yue, an assistant professor at the Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, said. “An example of that is in terms of my healthcare, I would love for it to be documented in a legally binding contract that those benefits can’t change.”
Yue said that in her time USC faculty, the health insurance plan she was on was changed.
“I had to stop working with providers that I really trusted and enjoyed working with,” she said.
The NLRB’s decision to have RTPC faculty vote comes after months of the university attempting to stall or prevent the formation of a union.
In Dec. 2024, a majority of the RTPC faculty filed a petition to the NLRB to unionize under UAW, according to the UF-UAW website.
That same day, the university issued a statement of position, calling the NLRB’s structure “unconstitutional.”
The statement outlined that the existing dynamic “limits the removal of NLRB administrative law judges and board members, and permits board members to exercise executive, legislative, and judicial power in the same administrative proceeding.”
The university made similar arguments to Amazon, Trader Joe’s and SpaceX, which have all challenged the constitutionality of the NLRB.
As USC chose not to recognize the petition and question the NLRB instead, the RTPC faculty and university administration attended a three-week-long hearing with the regional NLRB.
The hearings started on Jan. 6, 2025, but were postponed due to the Los Angeles wildfires. They resumed on Jan. 16 and went on until Jan. 30.
The UF-UAW alleges that USC’s administration argued that all faculty were managers and therefore they could not unionize.
“Not all 2,900 of us have hiring and firing power, which is what’s considered managerial, or even decision-making power when it comes to things like compensation and benefits,” Yue said.
The university’s accusations against the NLRB were not discussed during the hearings; however, that claim could be adjudicated in a higher court if the RTPC faculty successfully unionized.
If the RTPC faculty win their union, the next step would be to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the university. The CBA would ensure that USC could not change its terms of employment without the union’s consent, according to the UF-UAW website.
De Liso, who is retiring this semester after working at the university for 24 years, said, “I am doing this for those that come after me because I know what it’s like to put your all into a job.”
“I think the biggest benefit will be to be validated in the work hours that we put into our students and to feel like our contributions are worth making a salary that can support our lives,” De Liso said.