Blog
PASSHE’s Continued Healthcare Distortions
The Chancellor’s representatives repeatedly make specious claims about the System’s contributions to faculty health care. As a public academic institution, PASSHE ought to be more careful about spreading misleading information to our students and the public. Perhaps the most egregious example of misinformation was contained in Vice Chancellor Gary Dent’s Patriot News op-ed.
According to Dent’s misrepresentations, the System presented APSCUF with several proposals to align faculty health care with the plan the Commonwealth provides to most of it employees in the Pennsylvania Employees Benefit Trust Fund (PEBTF). He argues that this “concept has been agreed to by our other unions.” Untrue.
Although the System has made such proposals, Dent ignores that these proposals would substantially increase faculty members’ out-of-pocket costs. Further, Dent makes absolutely no mention of the fact that faculty already pay the highest percentage of premium of any union in the Commonwealth, and he overlooks that the Chancellor’s proposal to cut into retiree health care was never even presented to any of the other unions.
Dent’s claim that other unions have agreed to the concept is downright preposterous. PASSHE did not negotiate health care benefits with AFSCME, SCUPA, or SEIU. Each of these unions is in the PEBTF, and their health care benefits are worked out and negotiated with the Commonwealth, not with the System.
PASSHE has not finalized ANY health care proposal with ANY of its other unions. These unions tied their health care package to management health care. Since managers get the health care APSCUF negotiates, the other unions have, de facto, tied their health care benefits to our negotiation. Even APSCUF coaches’ health care design is tied to the plan the faculty negotiates.
Dent further distorts when he repeats the System position that it “pays more than $15,000 annually for family coverage under the health care plan it administers for active employees.” PASSHE does not pay Highmark any set amount for a family plan. The number he gives is an amount that is calculated as a necessity to comply with COBRA, and it is used to determine the faculty’s premium share.
The reality is that PASSHE pays a per-faculty-member amount calculated by Highmark actuaries, the total of which is $13,572.84. That amount is based on the maximum number of claims that the PASSHE group may make in a given year based on all of those who are covered (including spouses, domestic partners, and dependants). However, PASSHE pays only pays 90 percent of this amount ($12,215.64) during any given year. At the end of the year the claims are calculated to see if PASSHE has reached the maximum number of claims, which it rarely does. Regardless of the number of claims, PASSHE keeps the faculty’s money, even though members always pay a percent of premium based on 100% of the maximum number of claims.
Our faculty contract is the product of multiple negotiations across several decades. Over these years, the faculty sacrificed increased salary to maintain health care benefits. In past contracts, APSCUF agreed to share costs and pay increased percents of premium to maintain the current benefits. Now the Chancellor would like to forget the past and pretend that we should receive fewer benefits. This negotiation position is simply untenable, particularly given that APSCUF has already made concessionary proposals.
-Ken
December 19th Faculty Negotiations Cancelled
APSCUF and PASSHE have agreed to cancel the faculty contract negotiations session scheduled for December 19th in Philadelphia. Last week, APSCUF requested that the meeting be cancelled if the Chancellor’s representatives were not prepared to make a counter proposal.
APSCUF had provided a comprehensive proposal to PASSHE five days before the last meeting on December 11th, but the Chancellor’s representatives were not prepared with an answer or a counterproposal. In an email yesterday, PASSHE suggested only that the Chancellor and the faculty are far apart and that the meeting would likely be brief. Apparently, PASSHE is not yet prepared to make a counterproposal. After more than two years of discussions and close to forty meetings between the parties, the Chancellor’s attitude toward the negotiations process is hard to fathom.
PASSHE’s actions are particularly disappointing in light of last week’s settlement with APSCUF Coaches. Of course, the coaches did not have to bargain over the contents of a health care plan or the retiree health care provisions; they will share the health care design the faculty negotiate, as the other PASSHE unions ultimately will. Still, the Chancellor has demonstrated a different attitude toward faculty negotiations that can only be described as counterproductive. The next scheduled negotiation session is scheduled for January 4th, and APSCUF will return to the table; however, given the disheartening context, we must also invest energy in mobilization.
We will keep you informed, as always. At this point, I hope you focus on the next two weeks ahead, with the rest, vacation, and fellowship that are so much a part of the season. Negotiations, mobilization, and APSCUF’s future will be there to deal with come January 2nd.
APSCUF frustration with contract negotiations grows
On December 11, the APSCUF negotiations team met with the Chancellor’s representatives for the first time since the faculty at PASSHE’s fourteen universities overwhelmingly voted to authorize their leadership to call a strike. APSCUF negotiators had met internally to prepare a new comprehensive proposal, which was shared with the Chancellor’s team five days before the joint meeting. That proposal contained hundreds of thousands of dollars in concessions, withdrew some proposals, and adjusted several more. Despite the lead time, the Chancellor’s representatives were not prepared with a substantive response or counterproposal.
“The Chancellor and his employees keep telling our students and the public that they want to settle a fair contract,” said Steve Hicks, President of APSCUF, “but actions speak louder than words. Today was typical of previous negotiations sessions. We give them a proposal, and they need to wait to respond. They give us a proposal, we respond at the table, and they cannot counter. One can only wonder whether PASSHE is more interested in saying they are meeting than settling. Sheesh! They were ready to schedule meetings all the way into February.”
Another negotiations session is scheduled for next Wednesday, December 19, and two more dates were added in January.
“Our students deserve for both parties to be serious about reaching a resolution. Sadly, there is no indication that the Chancellor is equally committed to the collective bargaining process,” Hicks added. “We will return to the table and hope things get serious. Otherwise they will force us to escalate preparations for collective action.”
Email Blitz: Tell the Chancellor to Be Fair
Please take a few minutes today, December 3rd, to join united faculty in an email blitz to the Chancellor urging him to be fair. Please use the text from this template, prepared by APSCUF, and personalize it with your own name and university. The consistency of the messaging and the sheer volume of emails sent today will reaffirm the fact that faculty is united in taking a stand for the settlement of a fair contract.
Join CUNY faculty in the fight against “Pathways”
Today AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum put out a call for all faculty to sign a national petition advocating for a moratorium on the adoption of a CUNY program called Pathways. CUNY faculty have been fighting the implementation of the program, which would impact general education requirements.