PSU-AAUP has won the arbitration on behalf of ten of our non-tenure track faculty colleagues who were laid off last June in violation of our Collective Bargaining Agreement. The arbitrator issued a prompt judgment after receiving post‑hearing briefs, reflecting the clarity of the record and the contract standards at issue. We are thrilled with what this means for our wonderful colleagues, their departments and programs, their students, and the rights protected by the CBA.
The ten NTTF grievants will be reinstated to their previous positions and made whole, and the arbitrator will retain jurisdiction for 90 days to ensure compliance. This is the precise remedy we sought.
The decision finds that the university violated our collective bargaining agreement by failing to follow the prescribed process for the termination of faculty with continuous appointment. Although budgetary concerns motivated these layoffs, the university could not support its position that Article 18, which addresses conditions of employment for non-tenure track faculty, provides the proper mechanisms for termination. And even if it could, the university did not follow the shared governance procedures required by this article.
As the arbitrator put it: “Where is the analysis on a department-by-department basis of which courses are essential, which are under-enrolled, which no longer have relevance to the current marketplace? Where is the statement from each department chair as to the reason for each layoff? Where is the shared governance process identified?”
Also highlighted in the decision is the “inadequate response” to a series of questions put to university leadership by the Faculty Senate about the process used to implement budget cuts, including the absence of shared governance procedures required by the CBA. That inadequate response, of course, led to the Senate’s vote of no confidence last spring. The arbitrator concludes:
The collective bargaining agreement is not the proverbial Chinese restaurant menu – select one from column A and one from column B. Here, when you select column A you get all of column A, not just the part that’s convenient. There is no analysis I could do that would surpass that done by the Faculty Senate in supporting its vote of no confidence. It underscores the fact that the university made its layoff decisions before it had sufficient evidence to support them. That is a violation of the collective bargaining agreement.
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We congratulate our NTTF colleagues for claiming their rights and enforcing our contract through a long grievance process. Our students are well served to have them back in the classroom.
Shared governance processes exist for a reason. As we move forward with PIVOT or any other administration-led change to the PSU programs we have built and sustained with our hard work and devotion, we will continue to insist that shared governance and our contract be followed knowing that we have recourse when they are not.
Want to help make sure shared governance processes and our rights under our contract are respected? Join colleagues from across campus in speaking out about this violation of our contract at the 11/20 Board of Trustees meeting (now scheduled to start at 11:30am). |
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