Over 200 adjunct and contract faculty members have signed an official petition to form a union, which was submitted to the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday. The 230 faculty members are seeking to join the Service Employees International Union Local 509 through their Faculty Forward division, which represents non-tenure track faculty at colleges and universities throughout the Boston area.

Representatives from SEIU and the University will now meet with NLRB agents to set the date, time and place for a vote that will determine whether a union is formed. All parties must also agree to clear definitions of who can and cannot be represented by the union. Brandeis Faculty Forward, a committee of professors that has led the unionization campaign on campus, hopes to create a union representing all faculty who are not currently tenured or on the tenure track. Graduate students who are hired at a flat rate to teach courses might be eligible for union membership under this definition, according to comments made by Prof. Steven Plunkett (ENG) in an Oct. 7 Teach-In event.

According to paperwork provided to the Justice by SEIU spokesperson Jason Stephany, the union hopes to hold the election at some time between Nov. 30 and Dec. 14. The union is being represented by attorney Patrick Bryant, while attorney Nicholas DiGiovanni will represent the University.

According to Stephany, “Once Brandeis faculty win their union, they will conduct surveys and host a series of meetings with colleagues to determine contract priorities through a democratic process. Formal bargaining sessions with the Administration will begin shortly thereafter.”

Non-tenure-track faculty members signed on to the petition by filling out union authorization cards, which are cards simply indicating that they are interested in forming a union at Brandeis. While 30 percent of those who could be represented by the union needed to fill out cards for the petition to be sent to the NLRB, a simple majority of those who vote is needed to win the election and formally establish a union. Different departments and programs in the University use different terminology to refer to their non-tenure track professors, as well as whether those professors have signed on to multi-year contracts. The University and SEIU will need to clarify these definitions in their current negotiations. In 2014, out of 2053 petitions filed, 11,407 elections were held, and 952 were won by the union, according to data from the NLRB website.

A press release from SEIU Local 509 stated that the Brandeis faculty will join approximately 3,200 faculty in the Boston area which are represented by the union, including faculty at Bentley University, Boston University and Northeastern University.

Until now, Brandeis Faculty Forward’s work has mostly focused on spreading awareness of the unionization movement and of its members’ concerns about pay and job security. Most prominently, the group hosted a Speak Out event on Oct. 13. In a phone interview with the Justice, Prof. Christopher Abrams (FA), a member of Brandeis Faculty Forward who served as the master of ceremonies at the Speak Out, said that the coalition is now shifting its main focus to preparing for the election once its date is announced.

They will continue to spread information and answer the questions of eligible union members, according to Abrams. “I think our focus after that would be on the next step in the process — what would happen when we actually begin to sit down to form a collective bargaining unit,” said Abrams. A collective bargaining unit, in labor law, is a group of employees with clearly defined, shared interests who are represented by a union. Once a collective bargaining unit is formed, Abrams said that the faculty will then need to develop a formal agenda and list of demands they would like to see in a union contract.

“And again, that’s something that in many ways is a whole other learning curve that needs to be undertaken there,” said Abrams, referring to the collective bargaining process. “That’s something that, not having had the experience myself, that I think we’re going to have to educate ourselves and we’re going to have to move forward to reach that point, to actually sitting down and beginning to negotiate the contract.”

Common concerns among faculty at the Speak Out and other events have included job insecurity and low pay. Adjunct faculty members are hired without guarantee of being rehired the following year or semester.

Prof. Mark Weinberg (ENG) said at the Speak Out that the starting salary of an adjunct faculty member is $5,000 per class, while students pay approximately $6,250 per class, according to an Oct. 20 Justice article.

Interim President Lisa Lynch, whose background is as a labor economist, said at a Town Hall event on Wednesday that the University respects the rights of faculty to form a union if they so desire but that she hopes for a large voter turnout and that the voting body will be well-educated on what unionization means.

In an official statement to the Justice, Executive Director of Integrated Media Bill Schaller said, “We believe in the rights of employees to decide for themselves in a secret ballot election as to whether or not they wish to be represented by a union in matters involving the terms and conditions of their employment.”

Abrams told the Justice that the Brandeis professors have received “a tremendous amount of support” from adjunct professors at Lesley College, Tufts University, BU and Northeastern, to the point that he views the faculty at these institutions as advisors.

“Given that collegial relationship we have with them, I almost feel a responsibility to pay it forward, to see that that effort is carried through in other places where people are interested in doing something similar,” Abrams said.

“We’re just ecstatic this week,” he said of Brandeis Faculty Forward. “It’s been a big week and it feels like the payoff or the tangible result of a lot of the work we’ve done so far. It’s great to have reached this stage."