Welcome Back!

Welcome Back Colleagues!

We hope that this email finds you well, despite the myriad of challenges all of us faced these past 18 months. We know you are busy getting ready for fall quarter to commence and we don’t want to take too much of your time, but we want to share a quick overview of what our union has been working on this summer. No matter what your work and life circumstances are, we want to express our gratitude for you continuing to serve the PSU community. We are only as strong as we are together.  

As usual, please let us know if you have any questions. aaup@psuaaup.net

• Contract Enforcement around Remote Work: We pushed back on the Provost’s “Principles for Remote Work” for Academic Professionals sent to supervisors on or about August 16, 2021. The principles were a contract violation as they violated the process for determining a remote work agreement. They also placed  limits on all remote work regardless of job descriptions, something that is not in our CBA.  We were able to have OAA amend the principles and ensure that the process for determining remote work agreements are in compliance with our contract. The most important change to these principles is that they no longer require a certain number of days to be worked on campus. Instead, you can work with your supervisor to determine what works best for you and the University. To be clear, these requests are made in writing with your supervisor, who should respond within 10 working days, although requests may also be expedited in emergency situations. (Article 17, section 9).  Please let us know if you have any questions about the updated principles that are in alignment with the CBA. If you have not received the updated principles from your supervisor, please reach out to them.
• Vaccines: We were the first to urge the administration to have a COVID vaccine mandate and we fully support PSU’s push for all students and staff to be fully vaccinated in order to protect the health of the entire PSU community. We also worked to negotiate an agreement with Administration that no member would be terminated or otherwise disciplined because they are not vaccinated due to legitimate medical or religious exemptions.
• Bargaining is underway for the implementation of the new Teaching Professor Ranks. News coming soon!
• We are also currently bargaining new salary bands for APs. News coming soon!
• A new round of Compression, Inversion, and Equity increases to faculty salaries will be implemented this fall. To determine if you are a faculty member whose salary was adjusted, when it occurs, there should be a new line at the top of your “Job Summary” detailed in Banweb with the “Reason for Change” being something like “Targeted Market Increase.”
• Negotiated an MOA regarding “Attend Anywhere” course mode to ensure that this is a voluntary program. If you have been pressured into adopting the AA mode, or have any questions or concerns about this, please reach out. We have significant concerns about workload.
• We continue to monitor the Provost’s Program Reduction initiative, “Reimagine PSU.” This will be a major issue for us moving forward in the 2021-2022 year. 
• Along with PSUFA, SEIU, GEU we created a petition to advocate for faculty, staff, and students to be able to choose what makes them feel the most safe this fall term. It currently has 748 signatures! We sent it to admin on September 17 and have not yet received a response. We continue to collect signatures. You can sign the petition here.