Organizing Professionals

"This is a well-written book, rigorously researched but also suffused with Rhoades' extensive personal experience which spans campuses of different types across the country, and over time. The analysis is grounded in scholarship in the fields of both industrial relations/labor studies, and higher education, deliberately bridging the gap between these academic literatures. It is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the roots of the current academic moment. . . . Organizing Professionals demonstrates that organizing on our campuses, from the most secure and elite faculty to the most contingent, across the academic divides that are designed to thwart solidarity, is the only defense we have." (Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy) "Gary Rhoades has far exceeded his classic achievement in Managed Professionals. He provides a consistent vision of a possible progressive future for higher education that both serves the needs of the working-class majority and of the workforce that makes the institutions function—in contrast to the neoliberal austerity future currently being projected by those in power. This book will serve for many years as a reference for contract comparison as well as a current analysis and call to action for all of us with a stake in the future of higher education as a public good." - Joe Berry (author of Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education) "This important, accessible text gives inspiration and direction to all who are working to create a more just academy. The time is now to focus on labor in higher education." - Daniel Saunders (associate professor of higher education, Florida International University) "It's one thing to tell workers that if they stand together to fight the boss, they can win. Rhoades shows how they can win and what specifically they can fight for to improve their lives and their students' lives. Higher ed employers could be leaders in their regional economies, but only if higher ed workers take these lessons to heart and force their employers to lead." - Robin Sowards (labor organizer, researcher, and negotiator) "A vital book by the scholar who has contributed more to our understandings of higher education labor than anyone else in the past three decades. Gary Rhoades does far more than update his classic Managed Professionals, he charts new ground, analyzes hundreds of union contracts, and deeply considers the significant and growing organizing of academic workers—especially those in precarious and contingent positions. He argues that now is the time for workers to organize and for scholars to understand and theorize what their organizing means. Now is also the time for those who care about higher education to read this book." - Tim Cain (author of Campus Unions: Organized Faculty and Graduate Students in U.S. Higher Education)