Hey all,
“Breaking” news: this is the internal report on today’s State Meet and Discuss meeting in Harrisburg:
From the President’s Desk –
Since last summer, APSCUF leadership has tracked and prepared for possible retrenchment plans from PASSHE; in fact, there have been two directives from the contract department guiding local leaders on how to handle this topic.
Today that preparation met reality. I attended the portion of state-wide Meet & Discuss where “retrenchment” was discussed. I wanted to give you a quick report on the proceedings.
The system passed out at the table a procedural document, which we then discussed, along with other contexts.
Here are the most vital “takeaways” from the discussion:
· We were assured that no one would receive a letter on Monday (March 1, 2010) indicating they were being retrenched (this would be for first-year tenure track faculty; ref. Art. 29.F.1.a, p. 91 CBA);
· The document “suggests” the beginning of the process of retrenchment should begin in the spring semester before letters are to be sent out (see Art. 29.F.1.b-d) for the next year; this confirms that this is a long process, and no one should be worrying about their job, yet;
· We were assured that not all universities would be retrenching, though a lengthy and heated discussion of who actually was led to a promise of disclosure only when universities were ready (a ULP is likely on this).
Today’s discussion was fruitful and insightful, though obviously tense and sometimes heated.
Yes, these are interesting times. But we have one of the strongest faculty CBA’s in the country and one of the strongest retrenchment articles within that CBA. You can count on your leadership to make sure every avenue is pursued to make sure any loss of employment due to retrenchment goes through the laborious process of Article 29 and will be well vetted locally and at the state level.
You can both slake your curiosity and provide support in these tough times by attending your local chapter meetings. I am sure your leaders would also appreciate your input.
In solidarity,
Steve
A couple things to point out here. First, APSCUF was assured that not all universities will be retrenching. That of course begs the question: which universities will? From what Hicks says above, I take it that it was not made clear at the table today which universities will be targeted.
This does raise a question about Kutztown. At President Cevallos’s budget meeting yesterday, he was asked if all the PASSHE universities are having the same kind of budget crisis as Kutztown. Cevallos said, “no.” The implications here is that Kutztown’s budget crisis is not simply a function of the “economic crisis.” It has to deal with issues specific to Kutztown. Cevallos tried to suggest that the reason that Kutztown is in a crisis is because the university has invested in hiring more faculty. That explanation conveniently ignores the nearly 20% increase in the student body since 2002, several years of hiring freezes, and rising tuition.
Second, according to Hicks, PASSHE’s “procedural document” indicates that “the beginning of the process of retrenchment should begin in the spring semester before letters are to be sent out.” Hicks references the retrenchment article in our contract several times: Article 29. I would STRONGLY suggest that all of us become familiar with Article 29 so that we know our rights and can begin asking concrete questions about where we go from here. Toward this end, I am going to create a “Know Your Contract: Article 29” post where we can work through understanding that provision of the contract.
In the meantime, I’m going to see if I can get my hands on a copy of PASSHE’s “Procedural Document” so we can see what we’re dealing with.
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Christina J. Steffy
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