Bargaining Updates

November 9, 8-1:30: We will meet with admin on this day to, hopefully, wrap up non-economic matters. One thing we hope to address is the creation of an AP advancement process that would create an opportunity for our colleagues to get a salary adjustment on a regular basis. 

Bargaining will shift to economic issues starting on Wednesday, November 11, in an all-day marathon session starting at 9:00 am. The format will change to an “Affinity Model” that is less structured than our typical bargaining process. It allows a free flow of participants into and out of smaller bargaining subgroups focusing on specific aspects of an overall economic package – COLAs, post-tenure and post-continuous appointment review salary adjustments, AP salary advancements, etc. Negotiation at the big table remains part of the process, but the two sides can break into small-group bargaining as needed to carve up complex and contentious issues into more manageable pieces. A version of the Affinity Model was used during the last contract negotiation in 2015.
 
Our bargaining team has been working on how best to replicate this process in a Zoom environment, and especially on making sure the process remains as transparent as possible to the membership. In contrast to the bargaining process up to now, implementing the Affinity Model in a Zoom session that allows for breakout rooms will not permit observers, as the platform does when in webinar mode. However, on Affinity day, that portion of bargaining taking place in the main session will be streamed to a PSU YouTube channel [check your newsletter for the exact link]. Although it will not be possible to observe any bargaining taking place in breakout rooms, members will be able to observe via YouTube what the small groups report out whenever they reassemble in the main room.

As always, members can stay in touch with each other via PSU-AAUP’s Slack workspace [invite in our latest member newsletter]. This channel may be especially useful if you try to drop in to the affinity bargaining at a time when there is no main table action. Other observers may be able to fill you in on what has happened so far.
 
And remember that our bargaining team is buoyed when PSU-AAUP members are present as observers. Please visit the live stream when you can on Wednesday. Take a screenshot – or, better yet, a selfie with a screenshot in the background – to be entered in a raffle for a $25 gift card for a local Black-owned business. Send to aaup@psuaaup.net.