Pursuing Justice at Temple:
Please Attend The Faculty Diversity Symposium, 10/24!

 

The 2017 Temple Diversity Symposium:  Pushing the Intersections will be held on Tuesday, October 24^th, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a reception to follow, in the MBA Commons, Room 702, Alter Hall.  We hope members of TAUP (and lots of others!) will attend and participate in this important event. The Symposium is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the Committee on the Status of Faculty of Color (FOC), the Faculty Senate, the Council on Diverse Constituencies, Temple Libraries, The School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management, and the Academic Center on Research in Diversity (ACCORD).

 

The program includes:

• a Speak Out in the morning
•   a lunch-time conversation between Mayor Jim Kenney and Former Mayor John Street (a reservation is required for this event)
•  Breakout sessions in the afternoon (at various locations):

○      on women running for office, featuring Prof. Robin Kolodny and Councilwoman Helen Gym, sponsored by the Faculty Senate Committee on the Status of Women

○     on body mapping, sponsored by the Faculty Senate Committee on the Status of Faculty of Color

○     on the challenges of communicating as an international learner, sponsored by the Faculty Senate Committee on International Programs

○     on LGBTQ inclusion and progress

○      on Handicap and Disability:  What’s the Difference?

•  a panel on activism, diversity, and inclusion, with Carmen Guerrero and Malcolm Kenyatta
•  a wrap-up, led by Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, chair of the Faculty Senate Committee on the Status of Faculty of Color

 

At the wrap-up, Norma Corrales-Martin, TAUP’s Treasurer, will be speaking briefly about the implications of the new contract for diversity and justice at Temple and about our new Fighting Institutional Racism Caucus.  (If you are interested in the Caucus, please contact Steve Newman at TAUP: stevenewman1970@gmail.com.)

We should not need reminding, but recent events have underscored that we must all fight for justice for people of color, women, people of all faiths and cultures, the LGBTQIA+ community, those with disabilities, and those from other nations, whether citizens, long-term residents, undocumented workers, or refugees.  The Symposium will be a great occasion for connecting with others engaged in this fight.  TAUP hopes to see you there!

For immediate release

Contract between Temple and Temple Association of University of Professionals, including first contract for adjuncts, now officially in force!

Contacts:

Steve Newman, President, TAUP     Jennie Shanker, Adjunct and Vice President, TAUP

215 983 8905 (cell)                              215 917-4373 (cell)

stevenewman1970@gmail.com        jshanker1@gmail.com

The Temple Association of University Professionals (TAUP), the union representing 2800 full-time and part-time faculty, full-time librarians, and academic professionals at Temple University has approved a new collective bargaining agreement that includes adjuncts for the first time and offers gains for everyone in the union. The vote–with 97% of those who voted voting “yes”–affirms the strength of the newly-enlarged Union. The Board of Trustees voted to ratify the contact today, and so the contract is now in force.

Adjuncts voted to join the bargaining unit in November of 2015, and this contract initiates a new era for the Union. The inclusion of adjuncts means that all teaching faculty at the schools TAUP represents have a voice in improving the working conditions at the University.

“By ratifying this contract, our membership is sending a clear message that both adjunct and full-time faculty deserve high-quality working conditions when teaching our students. Now that we’ll all be working under the same contract and bargaining together in 2019, we’ll be in a stronger position to insist that the necessary improvements occur,” said Steve Newman, President of TAUP.  Jennie Shanker, Vice President of TAUP added:  “The University has not treated adjuncts as professionals. Because of that, those who have been interested in pursuing teaching as a career have had to struggle. This hasn’t kept us from wanting to perform at our best for our students. Having a union contract brings  the University one step closer to acknowledging that as an employer, it is responsible for providing equitable working conditions for everyone who educates Temple students.”

This new contract will expire in 2019 for both full-time and part-time members. That means that for the first time in 2019, the entire union, including all faculty, librarians and academic professionals, will be able to negotiate together in solidarity. This replaces an earlier fulltime contract that would have expired in 2018.

The contract also:

• Provides processes and protections on academic freedom, workload, discipline/dismissal, and grievance and arbitration;
• Raises the minimum rate of pay for adjuncts immediately from $1300/credit hour to $1425 and then by July 1st, 2018 to $1500–a 15% increase. Since most Temple courses are 3 credits, this means a $600 increase per course;
• Makes it easier to qualify for health benefit subsidies;
• Creates labor-management committees to investigate job security, promotion, affirmative action and office space;
• Extends the current contract (which covers full-time faculty, librarians and academic professionals), including the raise from the previous year and staving off any increase in health-care costs. This protects employees at a moment of uncertainty while the state budget remains in limbo, and allowing all TAUP constituencies to come together for negotiations in 2019.

Nationally, awareness has been growing around the harsh working conditions of adjuncts at many institutions since the 2013 death of long-term Duquesne University adjunct Margaret Mary Vojtko. Since then adjunct organizing has increased, involving unions such as SEIU, UAW,  the NEA, and TAUP’s national union, AFT.

Locally, TAUP is hopeful about what this win could mean for other local academic union organizing campaigns and negotiations, including upcoming talks between Temple and its graduate student union (TUGSA), and ongoing efforts led by the AFT’s United Academics of Philadelphia in negotiations at Arcadia University and in organizing graduate students at Penn (GET-UP).

About TAUP

The Temple Association of University Professionals (AFT Local #4531) represents all faculty, professional librarians and academic professionals in the 13 schools and colleges enrolling undergraduate students at Temple University in Pennsylvania. We negotiate and administer the collective bargaining agreement that covers the approximately 3,000 members of the bargaining unit. Adjunct professors in TAUP’s schools and colleges joined the Union in 2015.