Adjunct Professors Vote to Unionize at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts

Adjuncts at the University of Southern California’s prominent School of Cinematic Arts have officially voted to unionize in a National Labor Relations Board ballot count on Friday.

Two hundred and six workers voted to join the United Auto Workers union in the count, while 13 workers voted against unionizing. Out of around 281 eligible voters, 219 cast valid ballots, and there were 8 void ballots and 4 challenged ballots. The group includes instructors in departments spanning from production to screenwriting to interactive media and games, among others. The parties will have a week to file any objections, and if there are none, the results will be certified.

The unionizing group is calling itself the Adjunct Faculty Alliance. Said the AFA in a statement, “After a year of historic strikes in Hollywood and across the nation, we are thrilled to take that momentum to USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and collectively do the right thing. We look forward to negotiating in good faith to make USC a better place to work and learn.”

In its own statement, the USC School of Cinematic Arts said it “highly values our adjunct professors.” The school added, “While SCA would have preferred to work directly with our adjunct faculty to address their concerns, we will respect their decision to be represented by a union and are committed to bargaining in good faith to reach a fair contract. We hope to be able to continue to have a collegial relationship with them in the coming years, and we will work to do so.”

Adjuncts at the film school first went public with their organizing drive in November, saying that they wanted to raise pay and preserve health benefits with the unionization effort, as well as institute multi-year contracts for their services. They stated also that they want to be compensated for what they allege is currently unpaid work, such as prep time for courses, for most committee work and for trainings.

Added Frasier director and adjunct associate professor Katy Garretson at the time, “We are trying to create a fair system and a respectful system at the cinema school. The students deserve it. The people paying the money for their students to go here deserve it. The university as a whole deserves it.”

After the school declined to voluntarily recognize the group, the unionization question was put before the vote at the NLRB’s Region 31 office in Los Angeles.

The NLRB decision comes at a heightened time for labor activity in education. Within the last year, there have been 64 strikes in the educational services industry nationwide, per the Cornell University School of Labor & Employment Relations labor action tracker. In late 2022, academic workers at the University of California staged the largest strike ever of higher education professionals, while that same year graduate students at Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago and other institutions filed for union elections with the NLRB. This year, academic workers at Wellesley College and Caltech have voted to unionize.