Nicholas DiGiovanni, a partner with Morgan, Brown Joy in Boston, represented Tufts during its recent contract negotiations with its adjunct faculty.
Mary Moore
Reporter- Boston Business Journal
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Tufts University and its part-time faculty made news in October when the two sides finalized their first-ever union contract.
Adjunct faculty members are organizing on campuses throughout the Boston area, but those at Tufts University – now members of Boston’s SEIU Local 509 – were the first to finalize a deal with their university employer.
They are part of a wave of union efforts among adjunct faculty working on campuses throughout Greater Boston under the umbrella of the SEIU’s Adjunct Action initiative. Officials at Lesley University and Northeastern University are in the midst of negotiating contracts with adjuncts. And at Boston University, adjuncts have filed with the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election.
While we have heard from the SEIU and adjuncts on the unionization efforts, university officials have remained mostly silent.
Nicholas DiGiovanni, a partner with Morgan, Brown Joy in Boston, represented Tufts during its contract negotiations with its part-time instructors. In the past, DiGiovanni also has worked on behalf of Emerson College, Curry College and a handful of other higher education institutions in Vermont and New Hampshire on union contract negotiations with adjunct faculty.
DiGiovanni recently spoke with me by phone. Here is a condensed version of the conversation.
With the Tufts contract, what were the biggest successes and biggest concessions for the university?
On the management side of the fence, in general, there’s more defense being played than offense. (University) administrators are always in a position where they’re looking at union proposals and saying, “Is this something we can agree to in whole or in part?”
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