The NMU-AAUP has been representing faculty at Northern Michigan University since 1976.
To get a sense for how things were in the early days of the NMU-AAUP at NMU, we invite you to read information provided by NMU’s Archivist and AAUP member Marcus Robyns, and view his presentation, Blood on the Table: The Battle for Shared Governance at NMU, 1967-1976”: Blood on the Table Battle for Shared Governance.
In 2022 Northern Michigan University’s American Association of University Professors joined the American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT). With this collaboration we continue our mission to ensure academic freedom and oversees faculty working conditions, wages, and shared governance. We are the local of our national AAUP, located in Washington D.C. and the local of our AFT national, headquartered in Detroit, Michigan.
In 1915, academic faculty and professionals organized the AAUP as a response to efforts trying to control academic freedom and intellectual property. The AAUP assiduously promotes and guard’s tenure as this principle is a hallmark of discipline inquiry and discovery. Similarly, the AFT organized in 1916, during the labor struggles in the Progressive Period. It’s initial and continual mission promotes tenure, academic freedom, workplace conditions, and staunchly endorses human and civil rights.
The NMU-AAUP/AFT dues rate is one of the lowest deductions in the nation. Dues pay for services that ensure due process is upheld for all faculty members represented by the union. Dues pay for legal assistance when needed and provide modest stipends for union officers, the negotiation team, office personnel, legal counsel, and other expenditures. The union leadership are fellow faculty, employees, and outside assistance who work on your behalf and under faculty direction and oversight.
Your union is a source of information on matters that affect you. We monitor national and state trends that impact the workplace. We network with other labor unions on issues that affect working families, community, and fairness in the workplace. We are union strong!
The NMU-AAUP continues to work hard on behalf of AAUP members. During the spring of 2015 for instance, the NMU administration was essentially asking full-time faculty members to take a pay cut due to dramatic increases in health insurance premiums and co-pays. Despite being in a difficult negotiating environment with declining enrollment and Right to Work laws about to kick in, the NMU-AAUP was able to negotiate a far better contract than the administration had been offering for six months. These negotiations also secured a 12 percent raise over five years for contingent faculty at NMU.
