Women and faculty of color are often expected to do substantially more service work. This service work is often unpaid, and creates barriers for advancement as these faculty members are unable to do other work. Several faculty unions have worked to eliminate these barriers and throw a light on this additional work.

Starting in their 2014 contract the California Faculty Association has bargained for “exceptional service awards.” These awards “provide assigned time to faculty employees who are engaged in exceptional levels of service that support the CSU’s priorities, but who are not otherwise receiving an adjustment in workload to reflect their effort.” In particular these are awarded to “faculty for mentoring, advising, and outreach, to support underserved, first-generation, and/or underrepresented students and other practices in support of such students, including those caused by cultural taxation.” In their 2022 contract negotiation CFA was able to make these awards permanent.

Another example comes from Oregon State University. As part of their first contract United Academics bargained for a letter of agreement with Oregon State University where all supervisors would go through a training program to recognize unpaid informal labor from faculty from underrepresented communities. This training would include strategies to accommodate and mitigate such labor including “allocations of effort to service, mentoring, or outreach in position descriptions; peer mentoring and observation; course releases; and travel funding.”