We entered the mediation process in January, with the economics (pay), layoff and recall being the biggest points of contention. With the added leverage of calling for mediation, we got movement on 1/15 and 1/22 on some of the lesser aspects of economics, like research bridge funding and professional development funds, but there remained a large gap in our positions otherwise.
Then on Friday, January 24th, we held our largest practice picket to date outside ASRC, just before the Board of Trustees meeting. So many members showed up that by the time the BOT meeting started, we had filled the room to capacity with our members, students, and community allies, while many more filled the hallway.
During the public comment period members, students, and other on-campus unions spoke powerfully on how the misguided layoffs will end up harming students by interfering with their progress toward degrees and depriving them of faculty. ASPSU President Brady Roland poignantly detailed how our working conditions create student learning conditions, telling the Board, “If the administration forces a strike, Associated Students of PSU will rally as many students as possible to walk the PSU- AAUP strike lines to fight for conditions for students, faculty, and staff, and what we deserve.”
Each speaker earned enthusiastic applause from the crowd, including those out in the hall, who were listening on their phones. Those inside the room reported that when the folks in the hall cheered, the board could hear them loud and clear.
As the PSU-AAUP response to the Board of Trustees response to the Bunsis report shows, the money is there: administration has over $185M in reserves and over $188M in the foundation. Administration’s intransigence comes contemporaneously to their fundraising and going into debt to spend $85M more on real estate instead of working conditions.
Administration’s misplaced financial priorities:
- Spent -by their own numbers- more than $1B on real estate since 2010.
- Refuse to allow for the independent reconciliation of the discrepancy between the Bunsis report and the administration’s numbers which Trustees asked for.
- Been censured by faculty senate for making “unilateral decisions of the programmatic and curricular needs of their college and school, without offering 1) any evidence for how the unit heads in those colleges/schools contributed to their understanding or 2) a given rubric to indicate how these decisions were derived. In at least two noted cases, the finalized decisions occurred 1) without input from department chairs in the units being targeted for personnel losses and 2) with insufficient time for discussions among the faculty in these disciplines/units.”
While we are still far apart on the big issues, the size of our practice picket and the growing credibility of our strike threat have leveraged movement on language for notice of layoff since Friday. We still have a ways to go, as the most difficult economic issues are still open, and those 17 NTTF are still scheduled to lose their jobs in June, despite the grievances filed on Monday contesting many of these workers’ termination letters. But your involvement and action is making a huge difference. Once we finalize a contract everything we have or haven’t won is largely locked in place until contract expiration in 2028: our ability to stop layoffs, save our 17 colleagues, win on COLAs, and AP advancement. This is our moment. To win that we need you to sign this strike commitment pledge and recruit your coworkers to do the same.
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