Education: California Says Yes to Unions

A state faculty, 20,000 strong, decides to organize

The campaign went on for months, complete with professional organizers, phone banks, rallies, mountains of leaflets and handouts, plus a blizzard of ballots. Recalls San Jose State Basketball Coach Bill Berry: "For weeks, when you saw people all they said was, 'Did you vote? Did you vote?' "

At stake was the question of whether some 20,000 faculty members of California's huge, 19-campus state university system would accept union representation, and if so, which union. The principal alternatives were the more traditional Congress of Faculty Associations...