Sept. 29, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact:
Kathryn Morton, or 717-236-7486
Faculty negotiators returned to the bargaining table today to continue contract talks with the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education despite the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties’ filing of an unfair-labor-practice charge last week.
“Although we have been treated unfairly, I pledge to keep going to the table for the sake of our students and our universities,” APSCUF President Dr. Kenneth M. Mash said. “We just hope we will not be met with more of PASSHE’s cynical showboating.”
APSCUF’s unfair-labor-practice filing outlines the State System’s failure to negotiate in good faith when it bargained superficially and regressed in its offers during their latest sessions. While negotiations have been ongoing since late 2014, the State System did not put a comprehensive proposal on the table until June, and that proposal contained 249 significant changes. Subsequent adjustments to State System proposals have been progressively incendiary, Mash said.
APSCUF last met with the State System Sept. 21, the culmination of a marathon bargaining session that ended in anger. After meeting five times in a week, APSCUF negotiators headed to the organization’s triannual legislative assembly and scheduled strike workshop, offering the State System five possible bargaining dates after those events.
The faculty contract expired June 30, 2015. If APSCUF and the State System do not reach an agreement by Oct. 19, faculty members will go on strike.
APSCUF represents about 5,500 faculty and coaches at the State System universities: Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock, and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania.