House Bill 3170 was signed by the Governor and is now law. This bill changes the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act to allow certain faculty members who were previously excluded ( "UnEx" or "Unclassified Excluded") from the PSU-AAUP bargaining due to supervisory duties can now be organized and participate in collective bargaining. Specifically, these are faculty members who supervise but still have expectations to teach, do research and other scholarly activities.
We do not believe this law impacts "Unclassified Unrepresented" employee's (UnUns), or managers who do not have an expectation to teach, do research or other scholarly activities.
We have a sizeable population of faculty members who are excluded from the AAUP bargaining unit because they supervise more than one employee. These positions include department chairs, program directors, and others. Many of these faculty members are associate members of PSU-AAUP.
The caveat, however, is that they may not be in the same bargaining unit as the faculty members that they supervise. Most (but not all) faculty members who are excluded at PSU supervise faculty in the PSU-AAUP bargaining unit. These people can not become part of the PSU-AAUP bargaining unit, but we believe they could choose to form their own union and collectively bargain as a faculty manager bargaining unit.
Faculty members who are excluded but who do not supervise employees in the PSU-AAUP bargaining unit we believe could join the PSU-AAUP bargaining unit.
Anyone with questions about how this new law might impact a specific position should reach out to Phil Lesch with questions.