Law & Order PSU: Admin Proposes Putting Adjuncts on “Probation”
Last week’s negotiations hit new lows, as Admin maintained their refusal to honor the terms of PSUFA’s previous contract and presented their bleak vision for PSU’s future with what they termed “probationary adjuncts” working for low pay with no raises and with far less job security than you currently have.
After Admin’s temper tantrum at the bargaining session a week before, PSU once again offered only poison-pill deals as solutions to problems that they have created. The University continues to hold your Professional Development and Adjunct Financial Assistance Funds hostage, so your PSUFA bargaining team returned to the negotiations with a clear priority and question: will the administration agree to honor the contract and release the funds? Admin has violated a cornerstone of labor law—that agreements on wages and benefits persist as status quo once a contract has expired. Indeed, most provisions of contracts are legally required to extend during the hiatus period between a contract ending and a new contract being ratified, which according to some interpretations of the law makes extension agreements unnecessary and potentially sets a dangerous precedent.
You can expect that management is going to frame the options they’ve offered as reasonable. In PSU’s most recent proposal, though, the released funds would be deducted from future benefit amounts, allowing the University to claim balances already negotiated by PSUFA, costing adjuncts nearly $200k. The deal would also subtly eliminate the technology fund. It is your bargaining team’s responsibility to review any offer made by the University for its impact on current and future adjuncts, and the team is urgently working with legal counsel from the American Federation of Teachers to determine the best way to get adjuncts their much needed funds—and to get PSU to honor your contract. Stay tuned for updates.
After deferring on the question of the funds, the administration at long last presented their disappointing responses to your union’s proposals on fair pay and job security. In their impoverished proposal for Article 12 (Salaries and Payroll), which addresses adjunct compensation, the University offered no raises and only the bare-minimum cost-of-living increases —$30 to the minimum per credit rate for adjunct instructional faculty, and under $1 per hour for adjunct researchers.
Admin also unveiled a plan to obliterate the hard-won assignment rights protections that give adjuncts first right of refusal and priority for previously taught courses, the only structure for stability you have as an adjunct at PSU. The University’s cruel reimagining of Article 8 (Appointments and Assignment Rights) would harm adjuncts in the following ways:
Stripping all adjuncts—even those with assignment rights—to any claim to a minimum course load.
Changing the definition of assignment rights so it does not give a yearly number of credits, only a limited scheduling priority.
Forcing all adjuncts in their first three years to be classified as “probationary adjuncts,” regardless of number of credit hours taught. All “probationary adjuncts” would be the equivalent to current term-to-term adjuncts, and they would have no scheduling rights or protections.
Restricting assignment rights to “specified academic units”—University programs that have a high number of adjuncts, leaving all other adjuncts as permanent “probationary adjuncts.”
Forcing even those adjuncts with “assignment rights” into contracts that are one academic year or less.
Confining “assignment rights” to narrowly defined “areas of expertise” and only specific courses taught.
Removing any Just Cause protection for all adjuncts without “assignment rights.”
As your bargaining team prepares for the next bargaining session on Sept. 12th (RSVP here to observe bargaining), we’d like to bring your questions and reactions on Articles 8 and 12 to the table. Every single adjunct would be impacted by PSU’s regressive approach to course assignments, adjunct contracts, and pay, so what questions do you have for PSU’s team? What would you like to say to the Vice Provost of Faculty Success about the impact of these proposals? Read PSU’s proposals, and then submit your thoughts and questions here for your team to share at the table.
And don’t forget—the most important action you can take right now to exercise your worker power is to sign up for a Strike School session! Learn the ins and outs of striking, and how we'll win a strong contract, by RSVP’ing here.