After more than a year of negotiating, faculty members at the University of San Diego (USD) have approved their first union contract. Members ratified the contract Friday with 99% voting yes.
The contract applies to about 200 non-tenure-track faculty in the university’s College of Arts and Sciences. It includes wage increases, back pay and job security based on seniority, according to Service Employees International Union Local 721.
“Now, we have more transparency and a system of seniority,” said theatre lecturer and bargaining team spokesperson Soroya Rowley. “Folks will either be hired for new assignments or, if we need to make cuts, let go from classes based on their seniority.”
Non-tenure-track faculty do more than half of the teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences, Rowley said. They went on strike in May after they said the university cut courses without bargaining over the impact on union members.
“They saw that we were serious, that we had this collective power, that we could withhold our labor if we had to,” Rowley said. “That was what we needed to get us here.”
The contract now requires the university to pay faculty members a cancellation fee if it reduces their workload after July 1 for the fall semester or Dec. 1 for spring.
In a statement, the university thanked “all involved for their time and diligence throughout the collective bargaining process.”
“We value the tremendous contribution that our (non-tenure-track) faculty members make to our university,” the university wrote. “For nearly a year we have made extraordinary efforts to bargain in good faith with the representatives of the (non-tenure-track College of Arts and Sciences) faculty union. And we have an obligation to ensure that our university remains financially sustainable in order to fulfill our mission. At the heart of that mission, as always, is our students.”
Rowley said the union is grateful for the support from students and other faculty.
“My dream is for all the workers at USD to become unionized and have a say in their working conditions,” Rowley said. “I think when everyone else sees what we won in our collective bargaining agreement, they're going to feel ready to take the next step to organizing their own units.”
The four-year contract retroactively started in Fall 2024 and expires in March 2028.
