Inside Higher Ed has a story on some research into the effects of faculty unionization.

The conclusion is that the presence of a union doesn’t do much to halt the trend toward more use of part-time profs. That’s isn’t surprising. Unions don’t have magic wands enabling them to countermand economic trends. Union organizers talk is if they do in order to get themselves installed as exclusive bargaining representatives (who will collect dues money no matter how much or little they accomplish), but once they’ve won, they have to content the workers with marginal gains. Some of the gains organizers take credit for would have happened anyway.

Moreover, faculty unions can and often do get in the way of academic objectives, as Prof. Charles Baird observed here.