Michigan State University Extension workers are launching an effort to form a union.
Extension employees have a presence in every Michigan county and act as educators for the agriculture, health and management of natural resources. On January 31, ballots will go out by mail for a vote to certify the union.
“This has been a bit of an awakening for people,” MSU Extension crop scout Jeremy Jubenville said. “We now recognize that. As workers, we have little agency when it comes to some of the most important aspects of our jobs.”
Jubenville works in seven different counties on a regular basis. While Extension has more 400 employees working and eligible to be a part of the union, Jubenville says they are still understaffed.
The number of Extension employees also tends to fluctuate with a high turnover.
“When you have turnover and you lose key and critical roles, what does the manager ask of the team? They ask people to take up the slack,” Jubenville said. “So, you take up the duties of another person.”
MSU has its own voluntary recognition process for unions in which the university will recognize a bargaining unit if it has majority support within that unit. Jubenville says they considered taking that route but decided to take their current path with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission after seeing the Union of Tenure Stream Faculty (USTF) experience delays through the university’s recognition process.
“We originally tried going through a voluntary recognition process, but we could be here forever. This is just to go on indefinitely,” he said.
Extension employees will have three weeks to mail their ballots back to the Michigan Employment Relations Commission in Detroit where votes will be tallied on February 24.