APSCUF strike is over!
SHIPPENSBURG - A three-day strike by the faculty at Shippensburg University and 13 other state colleges ended after the Association of Pennsylvania State College Faculty and Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education reached a tentative contract agreement Friday afternoon.
"We made some concessions in salary and health benefits but otherwise we got all we were asking for," said SU's Dr. Kim Garris, spokesperson for the university's union chapter.
At the picket lines outside the SU campus, faculty and supporters who have stood by the picketers, brought them food and joined them on the picket line cheered and celebrated the news about the end of the strike.
According to PSSHE's website, once final language is agreed to, the new contract will go to the full APSCUF membership for a ratification vote. If ratified, the tentative agreement would be brought to the State System’s Board of Governors for final approval.
Final details of the agreement won't be available until the contract is ratified by the union membership and approved by the board of governors, a PSSHE news release said.
The new contract will run through June 30, 2018. Union members have been working without a contract for over a year.
While the state negotiators were mum about contract details, APSCUF said in a news release that it had accepted concessions in salary and benefits in exchange for eliminating most of the 249 changes the State System proposed last June.
"For the sake of students, APSCUF agreed to a salary package that was significantly lower than that of the other unions," union representative Kathryn Morton said in a news release issued at 4 p.m. Friday.
Both APSCUF and PSSHE indicated Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf was instrumental in getting the two sides back to the table and securing a settlement in the ongoing contract dispute.
"We are thrilled," Garris said in a telephone interview shortly after the strike settlement announcement was made public.
SU student journalists cover faculty contract dispute
Earlier in the day, SU professors and faculty manning the picket lines told Public Opinion they were surprised and touched by the support of SU students, alumni, the public and SU administrators during the strike.
Students brought coffee and donuts to their professors every day, starting early in the morning the first day of the strike. At noon Friday, students were still showing up with hot coffee, energy drinks, sweets, fruit and snacks.
Members of the SU volleyball team, the Red Raider marching band and other campus groups joined their professors on the picket line at various times. SU alumni brought crock pots of hot food to the picket line. One of the campus fraternities trucked their grill to the picket line daily to cook for the strikers.
"It's been touching," said Dr. Kara Laskowski, SU chapter president.
"It was invigorating," said Dr. Joe Shane, SU's chemistry department chair, of the show of support strikers received from both students and SU alumni.
In an effort to speed up a resolution to the strike crisis, SU alumni Nichole Windhausen, Class of 2012, spent a lot of her spare time during the three-day strike emailing everyone she felt might be able to influence PSSHE and its decision makers.
"I emailed Governor Wolf, the chancellor (Frank Brogan), the (PSSHE) board of governors, even my state legislators to tell them they needed to support our faculty and students," she said.
She credited her SU education with putting her in a position to get a job at a local microbiology lab.
"Without my SU professors, I wouldn't be where I am today," she said.
In the end, it appears Wolf's intervention might have been instrumental in securing the agreement that ended the strike.
An APSCUF news release said that without his commitment, the agreement might not have happened.
The union also thanked House Majority Leader Dave Reed, Rep. Mike Hanna, Sen. Judy Schwank, Sen. Jay Costa, Sen. Vince Hughes, the leadership of all four caucuses and other members of the legislature for their part in getting both sides back to the negotiating table after talks broke down Tuesday night.
Vicky Taylor, 717-262-4754