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As the budget impasse moves past the 100-day mark and several universities are poised to raise tuition substantially, the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF), which represents almost 6,000 faculty and coaches at the State System universities, offered a contract compromise to ensure stability for students and their families. 

APSCUF has informed Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education that the faculty will accept an agreement in line with that the one negotiated between the governor and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The State System has already reached similar agreements with its other unions. The details of the offer include a one-year interim contract and a step increase effective in January. APSCUF has also asked that the System provide updated financial information in a timely fashion. 

The contract compromise will help students deal with the uncertainty of tuition and the lack of state support. Last week the State System voted to significantly increase tuition at several universities.

“While this compromise does not begin to address our faculty members’ concerns, we believe it is most important to restore some stability for our universities while the General Assembly negotiates a budget,” APSCUF President Ken Mash said. “We all owe it to our students and their families to remove any concern about their faculty remaining in the classroom this academic year.”

APSCUF anticipates a quick and favorable response from the State System board.  In addition to the step increase, this offer calls on the System to continue to provide money for faculty research. 

The next round of negotiations between APSCUF and PASSHE is scheduled for Friday, November 6, following the System’s cancellation of a session on October 12.  APSCUF hopes to immediately begin negotiations on a new contract for the following year.

The State System universities are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania.  

The details of the proposal can be found here.

Today, the Pennsylvania Senate is expected to vote on “paycheck protection” SB501. This bill proposes to severely threaten the existence and effectiveness of public sector unions—including APSCUF. The bill seeks to prohibit the Commonwealth from deducting dues from paychecks for anything other than fair share. APSCUF’s ability to service its members would be devastated.

The bill would also virtually destroy APSCUF’s ability to lobby the legislature on behalf of our membership and our students. This purely punitive measure goes after unions because we have been effective in protecting retirement benefits, advocating for increased revenues, and speaking up for our students.

The deep-pocketed supporters of SB501 clearly want to have free reign to impose their agenda without any countervailing voice speaking up for working-class Pennsylvanians. For them it is not enough that the US Supreme Court has granted them the ability to funnel unlimited sums of money to those who support their agendas, they seek to eliminate all opposition.

Those who use taxpayer dollars they have received from contracts with the Commonwealth will continue to be able to do whatever they desire. Only unions are being singled out.

Please immediately contact your Senator ask them to OPPOSE Senate Bill 501.

The negotiations session scheduled for today, Monday October 12, has been cancelled by the State System. The APSCUF negotiations team is meeting internally today at the APSCUF office in Harrisburg.

The next round of negotiations is scheduled for Friday, November 6.

Remarks of Dr. Kenneth M. Mash
Before the Board of Governors
October 8, 2015

Mr. Chairman, Governors, and Chancellor Brogan,

These are certainly interesting times. As you meet today to consider new programs, an allocation request, and “pilot” programs at our universities, we know you do so amid the uncertainty that is permeating the Commonwealth’s capital.

One can only empathize with our university presidents and their administrations as they face this uncertain future. We were more than pleased yesterday to hear the Finance Committee discuss increasing its allocation request to the level of or even beyond the cuts of 2011. It would seem to make little sense to in anyway undercut the Governor, who has repeatedly stated his hope to restore the massive cuts of 2011.

Our universities have made sacrifices, and it has been our students who have suffered the most.

This Board is well aware of the cuts in programs and in staff. However, it does not get discussed enough how drastic the cuts have been in terms of increased class sizes, cuts in student support services, and in delayed plant maintenance. Monies for faculty research have dissipated or run dry, our ability to fund student research or external educational enterprises have shrunk, supplies are scarce, and too often our students struggle to get the courses they need to graduate.

Further, academic enterprises must be on the cutting edge, and it is very difficult to explore new opportunities, invest in modern equipment, or offer the highest quality education when the mindset is always one that calls for our universities to scramble to save every penny in order to survive. That our universities continue to innovate, educate, improve our communities, and shape future generations is a tribute to our administrators, our staff, our faculty, and most of all to the ambition, intelligence, and drive of our students.

But living with uncertainty and the pressures of penny pinching does not create an atmosphere for academic success. And so an allocation should indeed cover expenses and probable expenses, but the question ought to be raised to our universities, what are you not doing, and what more can you responsibly do with an increased allocation to benefit our students and move our Commonwealth forward.

Our faculty do, sincerely, empathize with our university presidents and their administrations as they attempt to come to grips with the uncertainty. We understand why they are looking at additional ways to raise revenue. But there is no escaping the fact there was a scholarship winner here yesterday who related to you how she must travel to work her job to cover her college expenses at Shippensburg University. There is no escaping the fact that Mansfield students, many of whom are from impoverished communities, are already shouldering the highest student debt of any university in the System. There is no escaping the fact that when a university says that its “pilot” is bringing in expected “revenue,” in the real world that means that our students, so many of whom hail from proud working-class families, will be piling up additional debt and their families will be forced to make additional sacrifices.

It is, indeed, a quandary for our university presidents. It is a product of our interesting times. As you put it eloquently yesterday, Mr. Chairman, our universities, unlike some others, are almost entirely dependent on tuition, fees, and a dwindling state allocation. Clearly the numbers do not add up. And it is clearly the job of our university administrations to make sure that they do.

But before our universities go about instituting their “pilots” – and avoiding the euphemisms – increases in fees and tuition – doesn’t this Board have an obligation to our students to continue to do everything possible to make the case to the Governor and the General Assembly that we need more by way of allocation? Doesn’t this Board have an obligation to see actual data about the results of the existing “pilots” before implementing new ones? And perhaps most importantly doesn’t this Board have an obligation to hear directly from its students? There may not be three empty chairs, but their absence is palpable. Let’s all encourage some movement on filling the seats on the Board that the law requires be filled by our students.

I say all of this fully understanding that the politics and finances of the Commonwealth may yet continue to deprive its only 14 truly public universities, our students, and their families. And if the question is do or die, there may be no other option but to proceed, to continue to privatize our universities, and to acknowledge that truly public higher education in Pennsylvania is nearing its death.

But please, before you act, let’s all try to make the case louder and more forcefully. Let’s see the actual data. And most of all let’s hear from our students.

Negotiators for the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF) and the State System of Higher Education met yesterday, Monday, September 22, 2015, at the Dixon University Center in Harrisburg. The two sides continued to discuss the retrenchment article and began conversations about criminal background checks as they were required to by the Commonwealth Court order. Negotiations are scheduled to continue October 12, 2015 at the APSCUF office in Harrisburg.