The adjunct faculty at Miami Dade College have officially won the right to form a union.
The part-time professors, who make up a majority of MDC’s total faculty, won a narrow 14-vote victory on Wednesday to form a union with the Florida arm of the Service Employees International Union to lobby for increased wages, health benefits, added transparency in course assignment and — most importantly — negotiating power.
About 42 percent of the 2,790 eligible voters cast ballots in the month-long election, and the votes were tallied Wednesday in Tallahassee by Public Employees Relations Commission election agents. The state office conducts all union elections in Florida.
Pro-union faculty edged out opposed voters by a slim margin, 587 Yes votes and 573 No votes, said PERC Elections Supervisor Eddie Johnson. With a simple majority of the 1,162 total votes cast needed to win the election, the pro-union voters narrowly met the threshold of 582 votes.
“It was a close vote and the union prevailed,” Johnson said.
The SEIU’s Florida Public Services Union, which represents adjunct professors at Broward College and the University of South Florida, said Miami Dade College will soon be home to the largest adjunct union in Florida and the “largest single-school adjunct collective bargaining unit in the country.”
Before the state can officially certify the results of the election, Miami Dade College has 15 days to file any objections. Juan Mendieta, an MDC spokesman, said the college would not file any objections, guaranteeing the pro-union faculty the victory they have worked toward since they filed to have an election last July.
Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald.