The relationship between environmental characteristics and collective bargaining agent affiliation of selected community colleges

This study focused on the selection or non-selection of bargaining representation by public community colleges as related to (A) selected institutional environmental characteristics, including faculty personality types, (B) different bargaining agents, and (C) location in states with or without collective bargaining legislation.

The following hypotheses were generated and tested:

1. There are no statistically significant differences in the selected environmental characteristics of community colleges affiliated with a union agent and those with no agent, i.e., Affiliate vs. Non-Affiliate.
2. There are no statistically significant differences in the selected environmental characteristics of community colleges classified according to their bargaining affiliates and whether or not their states have enabling legislation, i.e., differences among the six groups - A.F.T., N.E.A., Independent, Combined, With Legislation , and Without Legislation.

Forty-one environmental characteristics were selected for analysis. These environmental characteristics were divided into two types: (1) institutional environmental variables, and (2) faculty personality types.

The population from which the sample was drawn consisted of those public community colleges listed by the American Council on Education. The total sample consisted of 326 public community colleges; 136 institutions with bargaining agreements, 90 non-bargaining schools from states with bargaining legislation, and 100 non-bargaining colleges from states without bargaining legislation.

Data were analyzed through the use of three statistical tests: factor analysis, one way analysis of variance, and stepwise multiple discriminant analysis.

The factor analysis resulted in the identification of six groups of variables; namely, Faculty Affluence, Size, Technological Emphasis, Masculinity, Institutional Affluence, and Exclusivity.

When an ANOVA was applied, bargaining and non-bargaining institutions, taken as a group, could be differentiated according to Size with bargaining schools significantly larger than non-bargaining institutions. Therefore, the first null hypothesis was rejected.

Next, stepwise multiple discriminant analysis procedures were utilized to test the second hypothesis. The results of this test indicated that there also were significant differences among institutions according to the bargaining agent selected. Four of the six factors identified, i.e., Exclusivity, Size, Technological Emphasis, and Faculty Affluence accounted for 13 of the possible 15 between school differences. A.F.T. community colleges are more exclusive than non-affiliated colleges in states With bargaining legislation. A.F.T. and N.E.A. schools are less exclusive than Combined and Independent Institutions. Combined and Independent community colleges are more exclusive than Without institutions. The least affluent schools are the Independents. N.E.A. schools are differentiated from A.F.T. schools on enrollment, revenue and faculty variables. There was no significant difference between N.E.A. community colleges from With and Without colleges.

It seems patently evident that community colleges which choose to bargain collectively can be differentiated from those which do not by the use of certain institutional variables. It seems equally clear that the application of these variables can also be used to find differences among community colleges which affiliate with different bargaining agents.