A Message to PSU-AAUP Members from the Collective Bargaining Team
We have been at the bargaining table since last June. At every moment in these contract negotiations, we’ve been guided by members’ priorities as expressed in the bargaining survey, listening sessions, and general membership meetings.
We have also been responsive to the events of this past fall when 94 of our nontenure-track faculty received pre-notices of termination, after which 17 of them received final notices. The lack of faculty involvement in this process of “program revitalization” has revealed something quite disturbing about the administration’s interpretation of shared governance. This is why PSU-AAUP has filed grievances in response to these actions and it is also why the CBT redoubled its efforts to strengthen layoff protections in the contract. We need better layoff protections, like notices and severance pay, and we need clarity on the shared governance procedures required when academic programs must respond to declining enrollments. In the absence of such contractual obligations, we are all vulnerable.
Three weeks ago, we began discussing voluntary FTE reductions (VFR), including the use of cost savings to rescind the layoffs of our 17 colleagues. Some elements of the administration’s plan were unacceptable to us, as was the requirement that we also accede to their positions on all outstanding issues in the contract negotiations. Nevertheless, for the first time we saw a possible path to settlement. But in the end, the administration was less interested in negotiating a mutually acceptable VFR plan than it was in dictating take-it-or-leave-it deadlines to leverage a contract settlement and a withdrawal of the union’s grievances.
A VFR program, as well as other voluntary programs like the Retirement Incentive Offer (RIO) and a phased retirement program, which the CBT has also proposed, would eliminate the need for layoffs. But the opening for these negotiated solutions has been closed by the administration. This alone demonstrates an astonishing insensitivity to our 17 faculty colleagues, while it threatens what little progress we’ve made during mediation. Their whole approach to program revitalization, including a willingness to end-run shared governance processes and their refusal to address the CBT’s most serious concerns about the layoff provisions in the contract, foreshadows what this campus can expect moving forward.
The CBT has now informed the Employment Relations Board that contract negotiations are at an impasse.
A 30-day cooling-off period will commence when the ERB publishes both parties’ best and final offers no later than February 27. The CBT hopes that negotiations can continue in some form during this period, but something has to change at the bargaining table if we are to avoid a strike. Here’s what we need to be effective:
- Sign a commitment form today to vote yes on a strike authorization. Encourage others to do the same.
- If you and your departmental colleagues have all filled out your strike commitment forms, become a unit rep or join the strike committee to help get other departments strike ready.
- Make sure PSU-AAUP has your non-PSU contact information, including email address and cell phone number. If not, email them to aaup@psuaaup.net.
- Show up to rallies, practice pickets, and other events when our organizers issue calls to action.
In solidarity,
PSU-AAUP Collective Bargaining Team
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