A long week of fires and more political mayhem seemed to affect folks in various ways, but after a quick greeting we all pledged to attempt to do our best work under the conditions we find ourselves in. We were not anticipating, of course, the death of Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the end of our day together (more on that below).
PSUFA and PSU came to the virtual table on Friday, September 18. The meeting began with discussion of contract language and the biases (inherent and implicit) that adjuncts face in their profession. PSUFA has worked diligently to include language in the contract that speaks to this reality. The intention in doing so is to pave a path forward for adjuncts to be more respected and better included at PSU. Several members of our PSUFA bargaining team were given a platform to speak about the challenges they’ve faced on this front and their difficulties reflect those of their adjunct peers. These included being invited and/or asked to attend workshops or do work without pay, the stigma regarding being an adjunct and the struggle to find full-time work, and, finally, not feeling that we have a voice in our departments’ decision-making process despite teaching the most classes at PSU. One could venture to guess that our bargaining team may have felt a bit of catharsis.
In general, PSUFA anticipated PSU to be further along in meeting our data requests, in meeting our requests for further clarification on previously drafted language, and in being prepared to specifically address our economic proposals during economic discussions. While we were disappointed, our PSUFA team leadership quickly moved to reset the agenda for the day!
PSUFA is continuing to press PSU for clear, transparent processes and documentation of new adjunct hires at PSU. As it stands, we hope to secure PSU’s commitment to regularly reporting new adjunct hires within 10 days of employment. This helps not only our effort to receive a clear roster of members and potential members, but also demonstrates PSU’s capacity for managing adjunct employee relations. This may give us confidence that potential onboarding and training of new hires might occur in a far more substantial way than is currently practiced, and is also presently being bargained over. We know, it is quite surreal to be bargaining for our own training!
PSUFA then continued to negotiate a potential Preamble to the Collective Bargaining Agreement. As previous bargaining updates narrated, we encouraged this collaborative work as one method for creating a strong statement of purpose and rationale for addressing the “adjunct crisis” in higher education as part and parcel of our collective work. We presented a longer Preamble draft to PSU in prior meetings and they responded with a commitment to this document and various edits and clarifications. We noted appreciation of their work and relatively productive edits on our now shared draft. We still disagree on the use of “bias” in the statement; PSUFA thinks “bias” is an appropriate way to predicate some of our experiences at PSU, which was met with concern by PSU because of the overall implications of that term. PSUFA strongly indicated as a full team how this is, in fact, what it feels like. We will continue to work on this document in smaller group meetings prior to the next bargaining session.
We hoped to gain agreement and consensus on the more clear and transparent language of Progressive Sanctions and discipline at PSU. Unfortunately, after one month of consideration, PSU is still not ready (or willing) to agree on this. We do anticipate, however, a breakthrough prior to the next bargaining session.
We also negotiated “assignment rights”: how these should function (as opposed to how it presently is variously managed by Departments); how appointment order should work according to our more accurate assessments of the prior Collective Bargaining Agreement; and how this should be tracked. We are moving slowly through these issues and agree we are at least making good technical progress. At present, there is less disagreement on the “why” but instead PSU remains flummoxed by the “how.”
PSUFA endeavors to continue to both educate and explain. In addition, as part of our rights, we are close to securing an agreement on a new role for adjunct faculty members to be invited to departmental or program faculty meetings. There has been disagreement on the actual role this member would perform at the meeting, but we strongly believe this marks the beginning of a sea change in “who counts as faculty?” at PSU. Specifically, PSU is opposed to adjuncts freely attending faculty meetings as unpaid observers; they instead want to shepherd a process where an adjunct faculty is selected by the department chair or supervisor and attends as a paid representative (as per our last bargaining agreement’s hard-won provision providing remuneration for extra-instructional work).
We knew the major economic discussion was on the agenda and we were prepared and ready for the difficult, meaningful discussion about wages, professional development funds, benefits, and other vital economic issues. For several months, it has been PSUFA’s priority to discuss this issue, specifically wage equity. PSU has consistently voiced how they are in a difficult economic situation, both because of COVID-19 and, generally, because of declining enrollment.
PSUFA spent ample clarifying that despite forecasts of economic disaster, enrollment at PSU is only down 1%. Over the last five years, PSU’s overall revenue and expense budget has consistently been at odds with each other. Our colleagues at PSU AAUP, the union for the tenure-track and fixed-term faculty, prepared a chart recently included below that shows PSU has been consistently increasing in revenue, despite pleas from PSU that there has been an economic crisis. See the graph below for the totally generated revenue at PSU over the last five years (the 2019-2020 final budget has not yet been completed):
Furthermore the PSU end-of-year budgets going back to 2014-15 show a surplus for the last five years. These details can be seen below:
Taking into account that adjuncts account for only about 2% of the total PSU budget, PSUFA pushed to substantially increase the already-low wages we receive. PSUFA sought PSU’s opinion on the current economic situation at PSU while planning to advocate for substantial pay increases. The process we are enjoined in, however, encourages a slower and more deliberative parsing of “shared interests” and “non-positional” bargaining. Although we have committed to this process, we still recognize the slow pace may not be helping our cause. In that light, our leadership candidly and forcefully explained how difficult it was to understand PSU’s ongoing hesitancy to “lay the options on the table.” PSU, again after detailing another “frightening” look at the financial crisis, deferred back to the idea that they need more time to “understand the process” for bargaining economic issues as we move forward.
This was frustrating for our team but, frankly, we also anticipated it and were ready with economic options and sound costing models, criticism of the incorrect enrollment rates PSU relied upon for their financial estimates (as noted above), and we questioned the endless mural of dire financial straits presented by PSU. At this point, our Facilitator encouraged us to craft a process and refined topic list for our next intensive bargaining session in October (where we now anticipate economic issues as our primary focus) and where bread and butter will set the table (we will bring the cool water and salt!)
As we worked to set the agenda for the next session, word of RBG’s death coursed through our meeting. PSUFA leadership honored this moment but also encouraged us to finish our good work for the day, which we did. Thank you for your continued support as we continue our Bargaining into Fall Term.
In solidarity.
Our next bargaining session is Friday, October 9 (NOT October 2, as previously reported). Come and observe and support your fellow adjuncts as we bargain for better pay, improved working conditions, and more transparency from PSU!