Eighty-six full-time and three part-time Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) faculty members will unionize, following a 65-16 vote counted yesterday by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.

"The faculty are excited about this vote and the fact that it was such a resounding majority,” says Nancy Gray, NMC chair of Faculty Council. “We're looking forward to sitting at the table with our administration and our board of trustees and having an amicable and professional negotiation process.”

Barring any objections to the election itself, the Michigan Bureau of Employment Relations (BER) is scheduled to issue the Michigan Education Association (MEA) a certification to represent the faculty by March 23.

Next the NMC faculty will select their bargaining team and create contract proposals for upcoming negotiations between the MEA and the college.

“What the MEA has behind them is the legal support; they have all of the research and all of the experience in negotiating contracts,” says Gray. “They bring all of that support to us, but we do all of the negotiating.”

“The faculty will choose the team, we will sit down with the administration, we will write the proposals and the faculty will decide whether to approve a contract," Gray continues.

Neither side is sure when the talks will start or how long the process will take.

"No one wants to waste very much time at least getting to the first conversation," says Marguerite Cotto, NMC vice president for lifelong and professional learning. “The safest thing to say is as soon as is reasonable after the 23rd."

“[The faculty] are dealing with it on the basis of collaboration, not conflict,” says Ted Lorio, an attorney representing the MEA. “We should get done as quickly as possible because it’s in the best interest of the administration, professors, students and the community.”

The faculty, several of whom were reached but declined comment, remain tightlipped about their initial reasons for unionizing.

“I don’t think the professors, at least at this point, are interested in going to the public voicing their concerns,” says Lorio. "There are some matters that will be addressed at the bargaining table, between the parties with the expectation that mutually agreeable settlements can be reached."

When asked if the NMC administration has been made aware of said grievances, he adds, "The administration I think has an understanding of a number of them. They’re aware that there was -- I don’t want to use too strong of a word -- but discontent, and they’re aware of most of what the discontentment consisted of," he continues.

Gray maintains compensation concerns are not behind the decision.

“We’re not asking for more money, we’re not going to ask for an increase in benefits,” she says. “We want a voice at the table and we want some of the power, in order to provide the best education for students.”

From the administration’s perspective, Cotto says, “We have a lot of change happening at a very rapid pace. That loss of control, which is a phrase we have heard from some faculty with higher frequency, that may simply have just hit that critical mass where folks felt that they needed to explore this option for representation."

Regardless of how the process unfolds, both sides maintain education is of paramount concern and impact to daily operations should be minimal.

"I don't necessarily see dramatic changes that are coming in on campus," says Cotto.