Collective Bargaining Will Only Further Divide Virginia’s Universities

Cardinal News ran my guest column this morning warning that collective bargaining at Virginia’s public universities will only further depen the political divides that are undermining Virginia’s once esteemed system of higher education.

The push to unionize university workers in Virginia is not about increased pay, better working conditions, or fairness. Beneath the rhetoric it is clear this debate is about reshaping how universities are governed, embedding a radical woke agenda in university leadership, and how Virginia will adjust to the most challenging period coming for modern higher education. 

Demographers have long warned about a coming “enrollment cliff.” Beginning later this decade, the number of college-age students will decline sharply due to falling birth rates following the Great Recession. Colleges across the country are already preparing for fewer applicants, greater competition for students, and tightening budgets. Smaller colleges are already closing or seeking ways to merge with more stable institutions.

At the same time, higher education costs have been rising far faster than inflation for decades. Tuition increases are driven largely by labor and administrative costs — the largest components of university budgets.

These two trends, reduced enrollment and rising costs, are converging at exactly the wrong moment. Universities need flexibility to adapt to changing enrollment, reallocate resources to growing fields, and control costs. Collective bargaining moves institutions in the opposite direction, locking them into rigid labor contracts negotiated years in advance.

Once wages, benefits, job classifications, and work rules are codified in union contracts, even small operational changes can require negotiations or trigger grievance procedures. Institutions that once managed staffing decisions within academic departments must instead navigate complex labor agreements governing workloads, promotions, and discipline.

That rigidity may work in industrial workplaces built around standardized production. Universities, however, depend on flexibility, decentralized decision-making, and constant adaptation to student demand and research priorities.

But the economic concerns are only part of the story. Virginia’s universities are already deeply entangled in troubling political battles.

Over the past several years, higher education governance in the Commonwealth has become a recurring flashpoint between Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly. Disputes over university boards of visitors, leadership appointments, campus policies, and institutional direction have turned higher education into a partisan battleground in Richmond.

Now, with Democrat Abigail Spanberger elected governor and progressives holding legislative power, those debates are unlikely to disappear. In fact, the wholesale removal by Governor Spanberger of Governor Youngkin’s very reasonable choices for several Boards of Governors – has further inflamed division and harmed public support for Virginia’s once esteemed colleges and universities.

Adding collective bargaining into this already ugly political mix will only make matters worse. A quick review of the history of the organizations pushing for campus unionization, and you will see the fuel they will add to an already raging fire.

The most prominent group organizing campus workers in the Commonwealth is United Campus Workers of Virginia (UCW-VA). A review of the organization’s own website reveals an agenda that has little to do with traditional labor issues. 

The group has advocated for sweeping policy initiatives such as “Dismantle White Supremacy,” “Childcare for All,” and “Defund the Charlottesville Police Department” and “Defund the University of Virginia Police Department” — framing campus policing as part of a broader systems of racial oppression.

Couple these views with the organization’s view that universities should adopt a model of “shared governance” in which faculty and staff unions play a central role in institutional decision-making alongside administrators, and you have another voice for radical left woke ideology at Virginia’s universities.

From an institutional standpoint, this raises serious concerns. Universities are accountable not only to employees but also to students, taxpayers, alumni, donors, and governing boards appointed to oversee public institutions. Introducing radical politically active unions as governing partners risks blurring those lines of accountability and increasing division.

There is also a deeper issue specific to Virginia.

For decades, the Commonwealth has maintained a Right-to-Work law, a policy designed to ensure that workers cannot be forced to join or financially support a union as a condition of employment. Right-to-Work has been a cornerstone of Virginia’s economic success, helping attract businesses and maintain labor flexibility.

Expanding collective bargaining across public universities risks undermining that tradition. Even in a Right-to-Work state, unionization can still create exclusive bargaining representatives who negotiate contracts that apply to all employees in a bargaining unit — whether they support the union or not.

In effect, a union gains authority over workplace rules and employment policies for an entire group of workers. That shift would represent a significant institutional change for Virginia’s public universities.

And it comes at exactly the wrong time.

At a moment when higher education governance is already becoming a political battleground between Richmond lawmakers and university leaders, embedding union organizations with broader political agendas into campus decision-making could make universities even more divided and less adaptable.

If Virginia wants its universities to thrive in a more competitive and uncertain future, turning them into the next arena for organized labor politics and a woke agenda is a risk the Commonwealth should think twice about taking.

You can read my full commentary in the Cardinal News here. You can read an opposing view here.

Derrick Max is the President & CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy and may be reached at dmax@thomasjeffersoninst.org.