I am a member of the faculty of one of the 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). The universities in PASSHE generally were founded as normal schools, for the training of teachers, but then developed into regional liberal arts or comprehensive universities. PASSHE is separate from the Penn State system. Tuition and fees at PASSHE universities are generally the lowest of 4-year institutions in the state of Pennsylvania. As such, many of our students have limited means, and are among the first generation of their families to pursue a college degree.
The PASSHE faculty are unionized. Our union is called the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF); It has represented the faculty for the past 33 years. Relations between APSCUF and PASSHE have always tended to be adversarial, which I guess is typical for the union/management relationship. In my past 15 years here, the typical contract negotiation barely begins before the old contract runs out. No progress is made on a new contract for an entire year, and once about 14 months have passed, the union starts talking strike. However, once such threats are made, negotiations make rapid headway, and a new contract emerges. We’ve never struck… until this year. We walked off the job and on to the picket lines on Wednesday, October 19, at 5:00 AM.
Follow me below the fold for more...
But first, a word from our sponsor!
Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
The chancellor of PASSHE is Frank Brogan, an appointee of our previous governor, Tom Corbett (R). Corbett was one of the dreadful class of GOP governors elected in 2010, but he turned out to be so bad that, unlike any of the other bad GOP governors of that class, Corbett was turned out of office in the election of 2014. Before he left, however, he put Brogan in charge of the PASSHE in 2013. Previously, Brogan had served as Lieutenant Governor of Florida under Jeb Bush (1998), where he oversaw education policy for the state; that was followed by a stint as president of Florida Atlantic University (2003), and then appointment as the chancellor of the State University System of Florida (2009). As is true of any conservative Republican, Brogan hates unions, and public sector unions above all. It would be a feather in his cap among movement conservatives if he could break a high-profile public-sector union, and maybe put him is a position to begin breaking all the other unions in PASSHE. The Koch brothers would smile upon him, no doubt.
When contract negotiations began on the new contract, animosity toward APSCUF and outrageous proposals from PASSHE reached new and never-before-seen levels. Among their proposals were the essential elimination of tenure and seniority, a steep increase in the use of faculty in temporary and adjunct positions (while increasing their workload and decreasing their pay scale), a steep increase in reliance on on-line courses (even for students who live on campus), and the introduction of a new and large deductible to our healthcare plan.
In order justify that last item and apply pressure to APSCUF, last spring, PASSHE unceremoniously introduced a similar large deductible to its own managers and all other employees. Then they trumpeted about how the faculty had a healthcare plan so much better than all other employees in PASSHE, and how this was so unfair. But does anyone doubt that, the moment when the ink is dry on a new contract, the managers will restore themselves to their previous, very generous healthcare plan? Their ploy is blatantly dishonest.
However, the principal concern of the faculty is the change of the nature of the system’s universities. Currently, students in the system are assured of the personal touch. All but a few classes are small enough that professors get to know their students by name. If PASSHE and Brogan have their way, students will be taking their courses from overworked and underpaid adjuncts, or even graduate students. This proposal would create a two-tiered faculty that could be pitted against each other, reducing the prospect for unity in collective bargaining. Also, the increase in the number of adjuncts actually would increase the workload on tenured faculty also, since all those adjuncts need to be evaluated every semester for the quality of their teaching. That leaves less time to pursue research and direction of independent study by upper-class students. The quality of the education received by students would be significantly degraded.
After a lot of bad-faith antics perpetrated by PASSHE in negotiations, and after approval of a strike authorization by APSCUF members, APSCUF identified Wednesday, October 19, as the date when a strike would commence if there was no contract by that date.
Well, guess what? In the evening of Tuesday, October 18, PASSHE threw down its final offer (unacceptable to APSCUF for the reasons listed above), and walked out. Without much hope, APSCUF waited for PASSHE to return, but it did not happen. So the strike was called.
At 5:00 AM on Wednesday, all striking faculty at our university, along with some spouses (including mine) and even some children, began picketing in front of the administration building, on the main street of the town. It was a sight to be seen—hundreds of faculty, and a surprising number of students, marching up and down the sidewalk shouting
What do we want?
A FAIR CONTRACT!
When do we want it?
NOW!
and
Ain’t no power like the power of the people
‘Cause the power of the people don’t stop!
Ain’t no power like the power of the union
‘Cause the power of the union don’t stop!
The first day of picketing was very pleasant, as the weather was sunny and warm. The students were just fantastic in their response, some joining us to picket, and others bringing us all manner of food: cookies, brownies, donuts, soup, sandwiches, macaroni & cheese, bagels, other snacks of various sorts, sodas, and an unlimited supply of coffee. I would not be surprised if I gained a significant amount of weight from this strike even though I was arguably expending more energy than usual picketing. No students went to classes, and the administration had serious problems in trying to field questions from the students who were concerned they were not getting their moneys worth.
The next day, Thursday, was not so pleasant as it was rainy with temperature dropping to the low 60s and below. We nonetheless persevered, and by the end of the day, there were rumors that the chancellor had met with the governor, who was urging the two sides to return to the bargaining table. (APSCUF had never really left the table.) If these rumors were true, then our strike was achieving its goal.
Today, the third day, was even worse, as the rain continued, the wind picked up, and temperatures dropped below 50 degrees. Even in the bad weather, our numbers did not diminish, and students continued to bring us food and hot drinks. At 4:30 PM, we were all to gather in front of the administration building for a rally, but it turned out to be unnecessary. A text message came through at that time announcing that the strike was ended! A settlement was reached. While the union’s salary and benefits targets were missed by quite a bit, the damaging PASSHE proposals creating a two-tiered faculty, and doing away with tenure, were gone. As my current pay allows me to live a fairly comfortable life, I’m not too concerned about the wage concessions, though I do worry about the effect it might have on faculty further down the ladder. (Fortunately, wages for adjuncts were adjusted upward as well, at a greater percentage than tenured faculty.) I’m more concerned about the changes to health benefits and await the details on those.
My father was a plumber. Mainly for reasons of inertia more than anything else, he did not belong to a union. His dedication to his job eventually caused his heart to fail. He had to retire early, and while he received Social Security and veteran’s benefits, he had no pension. His old boss sent him a check for $25 every Christmas—that was the closest thing to a pension he ever got. After my father passed away at the age of 67, my mother tore up the boss’s Christmas checks, and that was the end of that.
Thirty five years later, now having gone through the fire of an actual strike, I have learned the benefit of union membership. For years, PASSHE never believed that APSCUF had the guts to actually carry through a strike. They pushed us to it, and we struck successfully! No more than 4 of our ~350 faculty at our university crossed the line. The university was effectively and completely shut down during the strike.
So maybe I should end this with a song:
Top Comments (October 21, 2016):
From MikeTheLiberal:
Leave it to crowjane to find the upside of today’s Denial of Service attack.
From ccotenj:
The last sentence of Nebraska68847’s comment moved me so much.
From your humble diarist:
I liked two comments from Chitown Kev’s recommended post on Oprah’s comments about the election on T. D. Jakes’ show. First, there’s samantha’s comment, and then there’s skohayes’s visual comment.
Top Mojo (October 20, 2016):
Top Mojo is courtesy of mik! Click here for more on how Top Mojo works.
Top Pictures (October 20, 2016):
Tonight’s picture quilt is courtesy of jotter!