Dear Mercy College Faculty,
I wanted to provide an important update regarding the election status of the efforts of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to unionize Mercy College adjunct faculty.
First, and most important, if you still have a ballot in your possession, make sure that you fill out the ballot and mail it back to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as soon as possible.
As we stated in our previous communications, the original date set for counting the ballots was May 2, 2019. However, due to a clerical error, the ballot count has been postponed for a select group of adjunct faculty members until May 14, 2019.
Reason for Postponement
The reason for this postponement is that late last week our team realized it had inadvertently left 117 eligible voters off the voter list that it provided to the NLRB. The NLRB’s rules only provided Mercy with 2 days to compile the original list, and those responsible for creating the list were out of state at the time. We immediately reached out to the NLRB and provided this supplemental voter list to both the NLRB and SEIU and requested that the time for submission of ballots be extended for these 117 eligible voters. The SEIU refused to agree to such an extension. However, the NLRB, over the SEIU’s objection, agreed to send mail ballots to these 117 eligible voters to ensure that their votes are counted.
The completed ballots of these 117 employees must be received by the NLRB by Monday, May 13, 2019, and the final election ballot count will occur on May 14 at the NLRB’s offices in New York City. If you have any questions about your eligibility, please reach out to Kristen Bowes at kbowes@mercy.edu.
Attached to this email is the NLRB’s Order addressing the postponement.
Mail Your Ballot!
Again, if any adjunct faculty still has a ballot in his/her possession, please fill out the ballot, follow the directions and mail it back to the NLRB as soon as possible.
If you have not received a ballot, please call the NLRB at (212) 264-0300 to request a ballot (reference the Mercy College adjunct election) and make sure to return the ballot so it is received by the NLRB well in advance of the May 13 deadline. I encourage you to visit https://www.mercy.edu/adjunct-organizing-information for more information on this election process and apologize for any confusion. Thank you again for your patience throughout this process.
Sincerely,
Tim Hall
President