Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties union members welcomed Kutztown University students back to campus during Move-In Day Aug. 27, handing out a letter to students and parents about a possible faculty strike.
A vote was taken with full legislative assembly to decide whether APSCUF faculty would take a strike authorization vote. Each university has delegates to the assembly. Kutztown University has eight voting delegates.
“The result was unanimously in favor. Therefore, the faculty of the PASSHE universities will vote whether to authorize APSCUF leadership to call a strike Sept. 7 to 9,” said Spokesperson and PR Chair, APSCUF-Kutztown, Dan Spiegel, KU professor and graduate program coordinator in the Computer Science Department.
If APSCUF leadership approves a strike, Spiegel said a strike would close classes at KU.
To inform students and parents about the ongoing contract negotiations, APSCUF faculty at State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) universities, including KU, greeted returning students on campuses.
KU faculty had a main table on the DMZ grassy area between the dorms on the south side of campus where they handed out water and other useful items such as pens and pads and distributed information.
“APSCUF faculty have been working without a contract for over 400 days and contract negotiations are ongoing. We do not want a job action to occur but may be forced to take one if the administrators of PASSHE, the state system, continue to forward proposals that would degrade the quality of our students’ education, and our working conditions,” stated the APSCUF letter handed out to students and parents.
The letter cited that PASSHE proposals include increasing the teaching load of temporary faculty by 25 percent without an increase in compensation and removing the faculty role in many aspects of decision making about course content and delivery.
“These and other PASSHE proposals shortsightedly aim to balance the budget at the expense of quality education. They would affect not only current students, but also alumni, as the proposals, if implemented, will do great harm to our universities’ reputations,” states the letter. “Rather than endeavoring to work together to forge an agreement in everyone’s best interests, the state system’s negotiators have taken an unnecessarily adversarial posture with proposals that will irreparably transform their institutions away from places of higher learning and towards training grounds for corporate America.”
The letter also states that “The stunning lack of vision of PASSHE administration requires APSCUF to stand up, not just for themselves, not just for their students, not even just for the PASSHE institutions, but for the future of higher education in this commonwealth.
The strike that we are making every effort to avoid is preferable to permitting the institutions to which the faculties of APSCUF have dedicated their careers to be reduced to mere training grounds for workers.”
We have something great here in Pennsylvania, and we are willing to do whatever is necessary to maintain the quality you expect and deserve.”
According to a release from APSCUF on Aug. 25, “APSCUF faculty members at each of Pennsylvania’s state-owned universities will participate in a strike-authorization vote Sept. 7 to 9, after delegates agreed to move the vote to union membership. Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties coaches will participate in a strike-authorization vote Sept. 14 to 15, after APSCUF’s Executive Council approved a request by the coaches’ leadership.”
Faculty and coaches are separate bargaining units and must act independently. Both APSCUF’s faculty and coach contracts expired June 30, 2015, and negotiations began in late 2014, according to the release.
How does this vote affect Kutztown University specifically?
“Presently? No effect on the beginning of the term,” said Spiegel. “We are concerned that this negotiation has taken so long. While PASSHE continues to claim they are negotiating in good faith, it took them more than a year to offer their first proposal. The first progress occurred only during the past month. Their comportment has been unnecessarily confrontational. Their proposals demonstrate a disturbing lack of vision.”
Spiegel said they told KU students returning to campus this weekend that they look forward to doing precisely what they were hired to do.
“That is provide them with a high quality, affordable education. We have, are, and will go the extra mile to avoid any job action that would be detrimental to their progress,” he said. “But, the state system is trying to push through proposals that would harm the quality of the education we offer and the reputations of our universities. We will do whatever is necessary to protect our students and institutions, and by extension higher education in this commonwealth.”
APSCUF President Dr. Kenneth M. Mash said in a release, “Our faculty and coaches clearly feel that the State System has not negotiated fairly; they are more interested in playing games than negotiating seriously. It is completely unfair to our students for the State System to continue to drag this process out. Eventually, there will be a contract. We don’t know what the State System gains by continually creating distractions.”
APSCUF scheduled the Aug. 25 call in June after contract negotiations remained stagnant. Negotiation teams met four times since then and agreed on minor issues, but made no major progress, according to the release.
“The State System wants to have graduate students teach, increase the use of temporary faculty, force students into distance-education courses, and cut the pay for those at the very bottom of the pay scale,” Mash said in the release. “We will, if the System gives us no other option, stand up for our students, our universities, and ourselves.”
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.
