On March 14, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Senator Laphonza Butler (D-CA) introduced the Thirty-Two-Hour Workweek Act, which would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours, while also providing that workers do not lose pay as a result of the reduced hours. A nearly identical bill has been introduced in the House earlier this Congress. 
During his recent keynote at CUPA-HR’s Higher Ed HR Accelerator, Commissioner Keith Sonderling of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission observed, “now, AI exists in HR in every single stage of employment,” from writing job descriptions, to sourcing candidates and scheduling interviews, and well into the career lifecycle of employees. But even if you haven’t yet integrated AI into your daily workflow, free AI tools can still be a powerful assistant. With some common-sense guardrails in place, AI can help you automate repetitive tasks, make software like Excel easier to use, analyze information and polish your writing.
New research from CUPA-HR has found that median pay increases for most higher education employees in 2023-24 continued the upward trend seen last year (and exceeded the inflation rate for the first time since 2019-20). However, the findings also show that most higher ed employees are still being paid less than they were in 2019-20 in inflation-adjusted dollars. The largest gap between pre-pandemic inflation-adjusted salaries and current salaries is for tenure-track faculty (earning 9.7% less), followed by non-tenure-track teaching faculty (earning 8.2% less). The smallest gap is for staff (earning only 0.3% less).
In 2020, the human resources team at the University of Texas at Dallas was set to launch its leadership and professional development program, the culmination of 18 months of dedicated work. As the pandemic took hold, the question confronting Colleen Dutton, chief human resources officer, and her team was, “Now what do we do?” In their recent webinar for CUPA-HR, Dutton and Jillian McNally, a talent development specialist, explained how their COVID-19 pivot was a blessing in disguise, helping them completely reconstruct leadership training from the ground up. The resulting, reimagined program — BRIGHT Leaders — received a 2023 CUPA-HR Innovation Award for groundbreaking thinking in higher ed HR. BRIGHT Leaders speaks to the needs of today’s employees, who desire professional development programs that are flexible and encourages everyone on campus to lead from where they are.
On March 8, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas invalidated the National Labor Relations Board’s joint-employer final rule, meaning the rule will not go into effect as was anticipated. The NLRB will likely appeal the ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The final rule expanded the joint-employer standard under the National Labor Relations Act, which is used to determine when two or more entities are jointly responsible for setting the terms and conditions of employment over a shared group of employees.
CUPA-HR General Counsel Ira Shepard’s overview this month covers recent labor union news: the unionization of Dartmouth College men’s basketball team, the potential F-1 visa implications that might occur if international student-athletes are considered employees, and the considerable rise in union membership and strike activity in 2023. A federal judge granted the NLRB’s motion to move SpaceX’s challenge from a Texas court to a California court. Employers that fire remote workers who are also in a protected class could give rise to challenges under civil rights statutes. An actor sues Disney after being terminated for political comments she made outside of work, and the NLRB reverses a previous decision, ruling that Home Depot violated the NLRA by not allowing an employee to wear a Black Lives Matter slogan on a work uniform.
Since 1996, the National Committee on Pay Equity has acknowledged Equal Pay Day to bring awareness to the gap between men’s and women’s wages. This year, Equal Pay Day is March 12 — symbolizing how far into the year women must work to be paid what men were paid in the previous year. To help higher ed leaders understand, communicate and address gender pay equity in higher education, CUPA-HR has analyzed its annual workforce data to establish Higher Education Equal Pay Days for 2024. Tailored to the higher ed workforce, these dates observe the gender pay gap by marking how long into 2024 women in higher ed must work to make what White men earned the previous year.
On March 5, 2024, the Dartmouth College men’s basketball team voted 13-2 in favor of joining the Service Employees International Union. The election marks the first time in nearly a decade that student-athletes have been authorized to vote for union representation and may be the first case in which their election results in certified representation.
On March 1, 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published updated forms and filing instructions for the I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker and the I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers. These updates incorporate new fee calculations as outlined in the USCIS fee rule. Notably, the filing instructions state that institutions “of higher education, as defined in section 101(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965” are eligible for the reduced fees and exemption from the Asylum Program fee. This clarification follows the issuance of a final rule by USCIS on January 31, 2024, which adjusted the fees for most immigration applications and petitions, resulting in significantly higher fees for most employment-based petitioners.
During calendar year 2023, union organizing continued to rise at institutions of higher education. Data from the National Labor Relations Board on union organizing show that 31.2% of all private-sector workers who successfully unionized in 2023 were employed by institutions of higher education. To provide an update regarding collective bargaining at private colleges and universities across the country, CUPA-HR’s government relations team has compiled the following NLRB data from 2023 and early 2024 to summarize organizing activity.