Ballot counting on whether Penn State faculty will unionize and become part of the Service Employees International Union 668 is slated to begin Wednesday morning and be finished Friday.
Voting took place by mail, and faculty had until May 6 to get their ballots in to the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. According to the state Department of Labor, 5,351 faculty were eligible to vote in the election. That includes faculty at University Park and the Commonwealth Campuses who are not managers.
The Penn State Faculty Alliance filed the signatures needed for a vote with the state in December. Union supporters have said organizing will give them more of a voice when it comes to pay, working conditions and benefits.
Penn State leaders said they kept a neutral stance on unionizing, only providing facts. But union organizers accused the university of putting out anti-union information, including the idea that a union could make getting research funding more difficult.
If faculty vote “yes” to unionizing, the two sides would still have to negotiate a contract. And, there could be legal challenges after the vote count. For example, the Faculty Alliance did not agree with the university on who should be classified as a "supervisor" and excluded from the union. According to the Faculty Alliance's FAQs, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board will have to rule on that after the vote.
In fall 2025, Penn State graduate students voted overwhelmingly to unionize. In that case, the university is currently appealing whether research assistants should be included in the bargaining unit. The university argues that research assistantships are different from other graduate assistantships "because research is an integral part of their academic training and degree requirements.” The Coalition of Graduate Employees disagrees and has been calling on Penn State to drop the appeal.
