Factors Contributing to Administrative Unionization as Perceived By School Administrators.

Abstract

The unionization of school administrators is a relatively new and growing trend in labor relations. Collective bargaining by school supervisors, once considered to be uncommon, now exists in more than half of the fifty states in the Union. The purpose of this study was to examine select factors that could impact on the formation of a union for school administrators. The population sample in this study was school administrators in three urban school systems in the State of Michigan. One school system has an administrative union that is supported by state and national professional education associations. The second school system has two administrative unions: the building administrators are associated with the American Federation of School Administrators (AFSA); the central office administrators are affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The third school system does not have an administrative union. An instrument entitled "School Administrative Unions Survey" was developed for this study. It investigated six factors and related components that could impact on a decision by school administrators to form a union. The factors are: (A) The Size of the School District, (B) The Type of Community, (C) The Success of Teacher Collective Bargaining, (D) Administrators' Perceptions of the Board of Education, (E) Administrators' Perceptions of the Superintendent of Schools, (F) The Influence of Other Administrators, and (G) Other (Independent Factors). Over 70% of the administrators from the three school districts completed and returned a survey. Descriptive statistics were used to report the findings. An analysis of variance was employed to determine the statistical significance of the differences of the opinions between school districts, sex, degrees, years of experience, length of work year, and administrative level of the respondents. The following factors have been perceived by respondents as the major causes for school administrators to unionize: administrators' perceptions of the superintendent of schools; the success of teacher collective bargaining; administrators' perceptions of the board of education; and the influence of other school administrators. It appears that the strongest factor of all is administrators' perceptions of the superintendent of schools.