The underlying message of the last bargaining session was this—PSUFA will not back down from the fight to protect your academic freedom and the safe and supportive working conditions that make that freedom possible. In the shadow of looming judgments on the Unfair Labor Practice complaints that your union has filed against the University for its unethical actions on the professional development and hardship funds, PSUFA’s team maintained its commitment to good faith negotiation while refusing to surrender key proposals that would safeguard your right to free political expression, uphold the integrity of your intellectual work, and empower you to contribute to the common good of the campus community as a whole.
Every right articulated in your contract is only as strong as the ability to defend it. Your bargaining team is close to a tentative agreement with the University on Article 10 (Grievances), which will ensure that adjuncts have access to timely and robust grievance procedures that force accountability on management, protecting you from encroachments on your rights.
Admin has been far more resistant, though, to PSUFA’s efforts to strengthen those rights as they are stipulated in Article 6 (Academic Freedom) of your contract. Across the country, higher education is under increasing threat from the technological exploitations of corporate oligarchies, the reactionary activities of anti-intellectual pressure groups, and the illiberal machinations of state institutions, a set of conditions that have mostly been met with opportunistic or craven capitulation by university administrators. Recognizing the danger of this moment, your bargaining team has continued to insist upon contract language that would secure meaningful academic freedom for adjunct faculty members who do not have the protections afforded by tenure, continuous employment, or economic stability.
Despite Admin’s efforts to avoid these discussions by hiding behind technicalities, your bargaining team refused to give up on measures to provide the support and security necessary for academic freedom to remain a viable principle at this university. In a counterproposal on Article 7 (Bargaining Unit Member Rights), your team held fast to a wide-ranging but essential set of provisions intended to secure the integrity of your work and the safety of your community. The proposals include protecting the intellectual property of adjuncts from being appropriated by artificial intelligence or other means without your consent. They would also enshrine PSU’s status as a weapons-free, fossil fuel-free sanctuary campus into your contract, forcing Admin to commit to the kind of environment in which academic freedom can thrive.
The session concluded with your bargaining team’s defense of the benefits funds set out in Article 13 (Faculty Education Fund and Professional Development) and Article 15 (Adjunct Financial Assistance Fund). Committed to the future preservation of these critical resources, PSUFA has repudiated the University’s effort to hold the material wellbeing of adjuncts hostage and to violate the status quo of the previous agreement.
Your team is motivated by a central conviction—that your academic freedom depends on the security of your working conditions and the integrity of your contract.
Our next negotiation sessions will be:
Friday, Oct. 17th, 11-3
Friday, Oct. 31 from 11-3