PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

State System Faculty Authorize Strike--What's Going On?
by Kevin Mahoney Saturday, Oct. 04, 2003 at 12:48 PM
mahoney@kutztown.edu (email address validated)

This past week, the Association of State College and University Faculty voted 95% in favor of authorizing the state Union leadership to call a strike if negotiations break down further. What are some of the issues at stake?

APSCUF, the union for all of the faculty at the 14 universities of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, is entering into a decisive struggle with the State System Administration. Our contract, representing the 6,000 faculty members, expired on June 30th of this year. Up until now, we have been working without a contract.

APSCUF has offered to meet in negotiations every Thurs, Fri, and Sat since last spring, but the State has only met with us a handful of times. Up until now, the State has been, at best, antagonistic toward our union negotiators and has refused to negotiate over any substantial issues of our contract. What are the issues?

ISSUES:
1) State wants to remove all caps on class size
2) State wants to remove all limits on temporary faculty
3) State wants to introduce co-pay for medical insurance, and the right to increase cost as they see fit without faculty consultation
4) State wants to freeze our wages and steps
5) State wants to guarantee management tenure and the right to appoint faculty without departmental/faculty approval
6) and so much more.

The State argues that the economic "climate is not right" and that because of budget shortfalls, the State needs roll-backs. Rendell said today that the State cannot give money to workers it does not have. Key word here? WORKERS. Check this out:

*** Management salary increases announced in January of this year were made retroactive to July of last year. Chancellor Hample received a 5.75% increase ($15,813), pushing her salary to $290,813, the highest paid state employee, earning more than the Governor of the Commonwealth. Two University Presidents received more than a 15% salary increase, while one new University Presidents salary is $200,000, up from the retiring presidents salary of $156,000  a 27% increase. The most egregious of the presidential increases amounted to a 15.3% increase in salary. Apparently management can justify those increases, while not noticing last years student tuition and (technology) fee hike of 12%. Apparently, management did not take into consideration the 3% reduction in appropriations from the State when deciding how much of a salary increase to give themselves. Now management proposes to freeze their salaries after these big salary increases last year and a 5% tuition hike. On top of all of this, the Chancellor proposes that faculty salaries be frozen for two years (2003-2004 and 2004-2005).

*** From 1998 to 2002, State System tuition and fees have risen 28.60%; the number of students has risen by 7.70%.During this period faculty have increased by only 1.20%. Administrators have increased by 8.30%.

*** The student to faculty ratio has increased by 6.4%, while the student to management ratio has declined (0.50%). That means larger class sizes for you!

*** During the period from 1997 to 2001, faculty salaries increased by 17.30% (approximately = cost of living), while management salaries increased by 28.10%.

*** Final data for 2002 are not in yet, but estimates place management salaries higher by another 5.43% (a retroactive increase back to July, 2002, was announced in January, 2003).

*** Also, according to the Chronicle of Higher Educations August 29, 2003 report of median salaries of administrators, our administrators faired pretty well.

National Median Salaries:
System CEO (chancellor) $ 158,859
Assistant to System CEO $ 72,500
SSHE Salaries:
Dr. Hample (Chancellor) = $ 291,000
Dr. Becker (Assistant) = $ 134,500

NEED TO FIGHT BACK:

While the major newspapers in PA seem content with making this struggle about money and benefits (surprise, surprise) there are more fundamental issues at stake.

PA workers have taken it on the chin over the past several years, especially after the passage of NAFTA. In most cases, workers were asked to take major cuts, give up benefits, or lose their jobs altogher. In the meantime, CEOs and management have seen their compensation and benefit packages go through the roof. According to the Keystone Research Center, "From 1990 to 2002, Pennsylvania lost 183,600 manufacturing jobs, or 19.4 percent. This loss was split almost evenly between durable and non-durable manufacturing." Yet at the same time, according to the same report, wage inequality is now at the highest level since 1979. <http://www.keystoneresearch.org/swp2003/swp_2003.html>

To underscore who's benefitting from this trend, consider the following: From 1994-1999, CEOs from PA utilities rose by 76% while wages for workers rose only 5%. Similar trends are evident in the statistics from the State System of Higher Education--Administrators earn more while teachers and university workers wages remain flat or below the rate of inflation.

But the real nitty gritty here is that we are seeing a corporate logic invade the public sector--this time, State Colleges and Universities. The State already measures "quality" at its universities on an "efficiency" model...that is, "producing" the greatest number of students with the fewest number of faculty. Not only is that in the State's official evalutation criteria, but in the course of our negotiations, Dr. Ed Becker, Assistant to the Chancellor, refered to students as "cash cows," in the context of arguing for larger and larger class-sizes.

WILL THE UNION FIGHT BACK?

That's the big question. Many of us are ready to take this fight to the wire. Nobody wants a strike...however, the question remains, if faculty, like myself, who are relatively privileged in relationship to other PA workers are unwilling to stand up and fight, it will be a major loss for workers across the Commonwealth. AFSCME, who represent all our clerical and custodial workers and staff (in addition to PennDOT workers) laid down by not fighting the State's corporate logic--buying into the "budget" as reason enough to grant the state substantial take-backs. Talk to one of these AFSCME workers and see how pissed they are. Not only does this amount to a real hit in their incomes, but it reinforces union members hopelessness.

There is a similar struggle in our union. Some of us want to organize the membership, to get rid of the paternalistic, business unionism model and stand up and fight for a fair and just contract. Not just for us, but for the over 100,000 students who attend one of the 14 State System universities. We need to educate, to bring this fight to the public, and refuse to cave into the incessant banging "THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE" into our spirit.

For more info on the issues, see our union website at http://www.apscuf.com but for a more detailed and useful website, see the website for IUP's APSCUF local website at http://www.iup-apscuf.org.

Kevin Mahoney
APSCUF--Kutztown University

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