On Oct. 19, the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF) made the decision to strike against the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) in an attempt to agree upon a contract that will affect 5,000 staff members. The three-day strike was a message to PASSHE that APSCUF was going to stand firm on their contract requests.
Within the 14 total universities that make up APSCUF, 100,000 students were affected by the strike. All classes were cancelled and all faculty members were ordered to shut down all accessible class-related websites and chat boards. These websites included Google Classroom, Edmodo and Weebly, to name a few.
The picketing lines were formed at 5:00 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19, and lasted until an agreement was met. Governor Tom Wolfe met with both sides during negotiations to express his thoughts and urged them to come to an agreement.
“Throughout this process, and during my conversations with both sides, the students and families were my focus,” Wolfe stated.
Dr. Ray Feroz, President of the Clarion chapter of the faculty-coach union, stated, “The PASSHE sought to divide our adjunct professors and full time tenure-track faculty by proposing an unconscionable pay cut and workload increase for our adjuncts.”
APSCUF has been working without a contract since June 30, 2015, and neither side came to an agreement during the negotiations prior to the strike. While APSCUF was fighting against the pay cuts, the executives and administrates of the state system were attaining hefty pay raises.
Despite the progress, APSCUF has continued to refuse the System’s numerous offers to provide raises to both permanent and temporary faculty and a healthcare package identical to what other State System employees have.
When asked about what certain changes that PASSHE were strongly against, Feroz explained, “Many of the proposals in the hundred-plus pages of contractual changes by the State System involved empowering administration [university presidents, for example] and severely limiting or denying true shared governance for faculty in critical matters such as: retrenchment [eliminating faculty positions], distance education [online classes], sabbaticals and even which department faculty should be placed, among others.”
The strike was called off on Saturday, Oct. 21, when the two sides came to an agreement which allowed the teachers and students to return to class. The newly-signed contract guarantees pay raises, stable benefits and premium health care that all 5,000 faculty members have been fighting for this past year.
“I will continue my fight for greater investment in higher education and affordability for Pennsylvania families. We must ensure that we all work together to strengthen the State System financially—after years of underfunding—while providing our professors and students with the resources necessary to train a future workforce to compete in the modern economy,” Wolfe said when expressing his support for the future of higher education in Pennsylvania.
Now, all faculty employed by the state of PASSHE are going back to work under a three-year contract. This means they will not have to negotiate until 2019.