Updated: 5 a.m. Oct. 19
HARRISBURG – Faculty members in the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF) are heading to the picket lines after negotiators waited through the night for Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education to return to the bargaining table.
“At 11:35 p.m., we made a last attempt to negotiate through back channels,” APSCUF President Dr. Kenneth M. Mash said. “We waited until 5 a.m. We are headed to the picket lines, but even on the picket lines, our phones will be on, should the State System decide it doesn’t want to abandon its students. They’ll know where to find me at 5:30 a.m. I’ll be outside the chancellor’s office at the Dixon Center on the picket line.”
Until the State System negotiates a contract APSCUF stated that it believes it’s fair to students and to faculty, faculty members will be on strike, starting 5 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19. The strike will end when negotiators reach a contract.
The faculty contract expired June 30, 2015, and negotiations have been ongoing since late 2014.
APSCUF represents about 5,500 faculty and coaches at the State System universities: Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock, and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania.
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HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) and the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF) remain in a stalemate and negotiations have not yet resulted in a contract.
“Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education has handed APSCUF a last best offer and said it is done negotiating. The governor urged us to keep on negotiating,” APSCUF President Dr. Kenneth M. Mash stated in a news release issued at 8:45 p.m. Tuesday.
“He was very clear about that. He personally spoke to both sides and urged us to settle this. I find it shocking that Chancellor Frank Brogan would spit in the governor’s eye like that. Through all of this, the governor has been a strong advocate for the students.”
The news release concluded, stating: “A final decision about a strike will come at 4:59 a.m. APSCUF is sticking by the deadline.”
PASSHE detailed its newest proposal offered to APSCUF with the clock ticking down toward the faculty union’s announced 5 a.m., Wednesday, strike deadline.
According to PASSHE, it has offered APSCUF a new proposal that would provide raises to all permanent and temporary faculty and a healthcare package identical to what other State System employees have.
Also, according to PASSHE, negotiators from the State System and APSCUF have made significant progress during five days of negotiations that began Friday, including reaching tentative agreements on more than a dozen significant issues, including distance education, recruitment and retention of high-quality faculty and professional responsibilities outside of the classroom.
But so far, APSCUF has refused both the system’s salary offer and the proposed healthcare plan changes. “We don’t understand how APSCUF can argue that faculty members should be entitled to a better healthcare plan than our other employees,” said State System spokesman Kenn Marshall.
“How can they argue that faculty members should be treated better than our university health center nurses, who provide care for our students when they become ill while away at college; that they should be treated better than our campus police and security officers, who protect our students from harm while they are away from home; or better than our other valuable campus employees, who provide a variety of vital student services?
“These are difficult times for our universities. If APSCUF won’t agree to share more of the costs for their own healthcare—like everyone else has—it will threaten our ability to keep tuition affordable for students. We have made significant progress since Friday, and were hopeful we could get to an agreement by now. It is unfortunate—especially for our students—that we have gotten to this point.”
In an effort to reach an agreement, the State System has withdrawn separate proposals that would have required full-time temporary faculty to teach an additional class each semester; that would have reduced compensation rates for part-time, temporary faculty; and that would have increased the maximum number of temporary faculty the universities could employ, according to PASSHE.
The State System has withdrawn more than two dozen previously proposed contract changes. Also among those was a proposal to allow some graduate students to gain teaching experience in labs and clinics, with the approval of their department faculty and under the direction of a faculty mentor.
According to PASSHE, its negotiators also withdrew a proposal that would have allowed university presidents to transfer qualified faculty from one department to another to meet students’ classroom needs, without the faculty in the receiving department having to approve the transfer in a vote conducted by secret ballot, as they do now. The proposal still would have required the receiving department faculty to provide a recommendation on such transfers.
“By removing many of the more contentious issues from the table, we have demonstrated our willingness to participate in the normal give-and-take of negotiations,” Marshall said. “We believed it also would show APSCUF our eagerness to achieve a new contract. It is clear from their actions, however, that healthcare and salaries are the real issues in these negotiations.
“On healthcare, our proposal seeks not only to achieve needed cost savings for the system and the universities, but also is a matter of fairness. We are attempting to treat all of our employees equitably. On salaries, we continue to offer increases that essentially mirror those provided to other unions. APSCUF has said no to both.”
As part of the new offer, the State System stated it’s proposing permanent faculty receive raises in each of the three remaining contract years. Those raises would range from 7.25 percent to 17.25 percent for individual faculty members. All regular faculty also would receive an additional cash payment of $1,000 in January of 2017 as part of a new agreement.
The State System also is offering raises to temporary faculty in each of the three years, with no workload changes. Part-time temporary faculty in the State System currently receive a minimum of $5,826 per three-credit course, which according to PASSHE, is more than double the regional average of about $2,700.
PASSHE stated that the healthcare plan changes implemented in January of 2016 for other system employees, and which the system has asked faculty to agree to, increased the employee’s share of their insurance premium by about $7 to $14 every two weeks, going from 15 percent of the premium to 18 percent. Other plan adjustments included a new deductible, co-insurance requirements for some medical services and higher prescription drug co-payments.
According to PASSHE, the changes, which not only would mirror those provided to other system employees, but also would be comparable to those agreed to earlier this year by the state’s largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), would be phased in over the next approximately eight months.
“As all Americans know, healthcare costs continue to rise each year. Everyone’s costs are going up, while many have seen their benefits decline. APSCUF seems to ignore this reality,” Marshall said.
The State System said it worked with its healthcare provider for more than a year to develop plan changes that would lower the overall cost of coverage to help produce needed savings for the system while continuing to provide a level of benefits to employees that remains very competitive in the higher education market, all without having any effect on the student learning experience or reducing other important services.
APSCUF leadership first raised the possibility of a strike early on in these negotiations, which began almost two years ago. The State System has never had a strike in its more than 30-year history.
Should a strike occur, the universities will remain open and will continue to operate to the greatest extent possible. Individual faculty members would have the right to choose whether to go on strike, or to continue working.
By law, faculty have the right to decline to participate in a strike and to remain in their classrooms and continue their classes for their students. Students would be expected to continue to report to class until informed otherwise by their university.
Regular updates will be posted on the State System’s Web site at www.passhe.edu/negotiations, and on the individual universities’ Web sites.
Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education is the largest provider of higher education in the Commonwealth, with more than 105,000 degree-seeking students and thousands more who are enrolled in certificate and other career-development programs. Collectively, the 14 universities that comprise the State System offer more than 2,300 degree and certificate programs in more than 530 academic areas. Nearly 520,000 State System university alumni live in Pennsylvania.
The State System universities are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania. The universities also operate branch campuses in Oil City (Clarion), Freeport and Punxsutawney (IUP), and Clearfield (Lock Haven), and offer classes and programs at several regional centers, including the Dixon University Center in Harrisburg and in Center City in Philadelphia.
