PSU-AAUP: The Importance of Having a Union!
by José Padín, President
We are reminded of this on a daily basis. We’d like to share with our colleagues from the rest of the state a quick scan of some PSU-AAUP highlights at the moment…
Early-warning and prevention: Some non-tenure track faculty (NTTF) applying for promotion into the ranks for Assistant Professor were being denied the right, on the basis of an error in some management communications that (unwittingly) misconstrued the will of the vote of the PSU faculty senate. PSU-AAUP stood for our colleagues, consulted with the Senate, brought the matter to our counterparts in administration, and the problem has been corrected. Rights preserved!
Membership and Organizing… PSU-AAUP kicks off its first annual “Conversations” series this month, to explore a variety of issues that have a very significant impact on the experience of faculty and academic professionals. The first two “PSU-AAUP Conversations” are November 2, “Women in the Academic Workplace,” and November 18, “Racial Justice in the Academic Workplace.” Thanks go to our Vice President for Membership and Organizing, Kellie Gallagher, for starting the new “Conversations” series. And especially for listening to, and running with, member ideas!
Bargaining… Class Sizes and Intellectual Property Rights: Our new collective bargaining agreement was signed in May, and runs through 2019, but our colleagues on the Collective Bargaining team maintain a busy schedule of “off-season” bargaining to protect quality. Led by our Vice President for Collective Bargaining, David Hansen, our CBT is currently busy bargaining on class sizes and intellectual property rights (among other issues).
Grievances… Workload Creep: A new article in our CBA allows us to initiate grievances to address, and mitigate, excessive workloads for Academic Professionals. Our Vice President for Academic Freedom and Grievances, Amanda Byron, has submitted our first “workload mitigation grievance” to address an “unreasonable and excessive” workload.
