At last Friday’s bargaining session, we started off the day discussing some of the task force charges that we have already signed-off on. The Work/Life Balance task force letter of agreement stated that we intended to have a conversation in bargaining about childcare issues that might result in additional task force responsibilities, so we started a brief conversation about childcare. Both sides agreed that childcare is an issue and that it affects more than just the 1250+ employees represented by our union, AAUP. We are going to explore how we can make this issue a campus-wide priority, perhaps by requesting that the President bring together a task force on this issue.
After this discussion, we moved back into the Summer Session issue. In our last session, the facilitator suggested that both sides prepare a comprehensive proposal to address this issue. Administration did not bring a Summer Session proposal to the table. Our proposal restores historic rates of pay (2.5% of our annual salary rate/credit, which is 10% of your pay for a 4-credit course), gives first right of refusal to faculty who regularly teach a course that is going to be offered in the summer, provides a stipend to faculty whose courses were cancelled with less than 10 days’ notice and initiates a campus-wide conversation about the mission of Summer Session at PSU.
We had a lot of discussion about various pieces of our proposal. Administration was reluctant to add language about rights of first refusal and course cancellations, since these issues are not covered by our current Collective Bargaining Agreement. Toward the end of the session, both teams seemed to be in agreement that the administration would provide our union with annual data about Summer Session, including information about course cancellations and faculty mix. We would set a date to reopen the Summer Session article at some point during the duration of our next agreement to bargain over language about rights of first refusal or course cancellations if these continued to be issues. We also agreed that the contract needs to include Summer Session pay rates. The administration recognizes the 2.5% of annual salary rate/credit as the standard rate of pay for summer teaching assignments; however, they are reluctant to restore this rate to all departments for Summer Term 2016.
We will continue to bargain about Summer Session when we meet again. Please join us on Friday, November 6th 10am-4pm, Smith basement room 047A. (This is a noisy location; it’s right behind the bowling alley. We may end up moving to a different room. If we do, we’ll hang a sign on the door to let you know where we are). We’d love to have members from University Studies and the School of Business join us; these are the two areas that the administration insists can’t afford to restore historic rates of summer pay.