More than 130 research, teaching, practitioner and clinical-track faculty signed a letter published Tuesday expressing their support for most non-tenure track faculty voting for the proposed union in the upcoming election. 

“In these challenging times for USC and higher education more broadly, it’s more important than ever that we have a stronger faculty voice,” the letter read. 

The letter comes after a regional National Labor Relations Board ruled March 19 that the election could be held, rejecting the University’s challenges.

About one month after this ruling, full-time RTPC faculty from the Gould School of Law released a public statement Friday opposing their inclusion in the proposed University-wide RTPC faculty union. While 10 full-time RTPC Gould faculty members were represented in that letter, the letter supporting unionization efforts was signed by 11 Gould faculty members, all of whom were adjunct lecturers.

In the recent letter, RTPC faculty expressed their desire to unionize, stating that “without a union and collective bargaining, the USC administration can and does change our conditions unilaterally.” 

One of signatories, Sanjay Madhav, a faculty organizer with the proposed union, said the letter was meant to show support beyond the volume of signatures. 

“The goal is to show that there is broad support across the University,” said Madhav, an associate professor of technology and applied computer practice. “There’s a lot more faculty supporting it than the 100 plus signatures on this — but we wanted to make it easy to see that it was a large representative set of all the faculty.”

All eligible RTPC faculty will be allowed to vote by mail in the election from April 24 through May 15.