Month: January 2020

Vote for TAUP’s New Vice President! 

Because our Vice President, Jennie Shanker, has decided to pursue her research, teaching and other opportunities outside of Temple, we need to elect someone to serve the remainder of her term, which concludes 4/30/21.

Dues-paying members in good standing will shortly receive a ballot tied to their Temple email.  (The right to participate in electing officers is another good reason to join TAUP!)

If you do not receive a ballot in the next 48 hours and  believe that you should have, please contact TAUP.

Voting will close at noon on January 31st.

 

We have two candidates for Vice President:  Leanne Finnigan from Charles Library and Donald Wargo from Economics.  Their candidates’ statements are below. TAUP thanks them for standing for this very important office. 

Leanne Finnigan (Librarian on Regular Appointment, Charles Library) 

I have been a librarian at Temple University and a proud TAUP member since 2013. After the birth of my daughter in 2017, I returned from maternity leave determined to fight for better parental leave and childcare benefits on campus. TAUP leadership was proactive and endlessly supportive, hearing me out about librarians’ lack of paid parental leave and the need for better policies. I joined the TAUP/Faculty Senate Childcare Committee and was invited to serve on the recent contract negotiating team. As a member of the negotiating team, I helped secure modest gains for librarians around parental leave, but our work is far from done.

If elected Vice President of TAUP, I will build on the momentum and energy of the contract campaign. I want TAUP to plan for the future and think strategically about building our political power so that we can push for more. This will require growing our membership base and building the union’s capacity. It will require listening to and supporting women, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color within TAUP, and cultivating relationships with other bargaining units and members of the neighboring community. As Vice President I will fight for family-affirming policies such as campus-wide childcare benefits, adequate parental leave, and lactation support. I want to grow a union that is responsive, proactive, transparent, and accessible. I want all Temple faculty, adjuncts, librarians, and academic professionals to be heard and treated with the respect they deserve.

I have spoken about my experience as a single, working mother at a number of our rallies, and countless members have reached out to share similar struggles. Your stories inspire me to run for Vice President of TAUP. I would be honored to have your vote.

 

Donald Wargo (Associate Professor of Teaching/Instruction, Economics)

Hello. My name is Donald Wargo and I am running for Vice President of your union, the Temple Association of University Professionals (TAUP). I am an NTT and Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts.

I have been active in TAUP for over 10 years. I am currently Assistant Treasurer of TAUP and on the Executive Board of TAUP. I am also Chair of the NTT Constituency Council. Further, I am a member of the Grievance Committee of TAUP.

Additionally, I was a member of the negotiating team for the renewal of the TAUP Contract in 2014 and was a member of the negotiating team for the renewal of the TAUP Contract that was just ratified in December, 2019.

Prior to teaching at Temple, I was an executive in the real estate business for thirty years and I was an owner of my own company for 15 of those years. I bring this management and negotiating experience to my work for TAUP.

My personal passion is achieving social justice and TAUP allows me the satisfaction of being able to work for the betterment of my fellow professionals. My intention, if elected Vice President, is to continue TAUPs policy of looking out for the interests of TT’s and Adjuncts, as well as my fellow NTTs.

I am very pleased that we were able to achieve a lot of progress in the TAUP Contract that the members just ratified. However, there is still more work to be done, both in the enforcement of the provisions in the ratified contract and in achieving new advances for the TAUP Collective Bargaining Unit.

If you elect me as Vice President of your union, I pledge to work with President Steve Newman and the TAUP Executive Council both on continuing the fight for TAUP’s current priorities and preparing for new priorities when our recently ratified contract will be up for renewal in October, 2023.

The current priorities that we won in the new contract which I will work to enforce are:

  • Enforcement of the provisions of the recently ratified contract. This includes new provisions for all our Collective Bargaining Unit, TT’s, NTT’s, Adjuncts, Librarians, and Academic Professionals.
  • Enforcement of the new Adjunct job security provisions.
  • Enforcement of the new NTT job security provisions.
  • Enforcement of NTT representation on Promotion, Merit and Sabbatical Committees.
  • Recruitment of additional TAUP members to enhance TAUP’s power.
  • Press Temple administration on additional hiring of Tenure Track professionals.
  • Enforcement of provisions for female and minority faculty at Temple.
  • Enhancement of an early response of TAUP to any of the difficulties of the members of our Collective Bargaining Unit so we can hopefully solve problems early.

      I ask you to vote for me as your TAUP Vice President and I promise to do my best to faithfully work for your benefit.

Raises and Retroactive Pay Info + Contract Orientation

With the new contract in effect, everyone in the bargaining unit now needs to join in the effort to  insure that the new gains we’ve fought for are being implemented. It is important to have people in each department who understand the rights that the contract now offers.  It’s also important, as we establish a plan for the next four years, for union leadership to hear from you.

Temple becomes a better place to work when everyone who is protected by the contract understands what’s in it. 

That’s why it’s so important for everyone to be connected to the work of the union. Every department needs active union members.  It’s how you can help amplify the voices of our faculty, academic professionals, and librarians. We move forward in improving the conditions that we work, teach, research and serve in together.  

This Friday, January 24th, join us for our organizing and contract orientation retreat, and let union leadership hear your thoughts about moving forward over the next four years.

Friday, January 24, 12pm-5pm in Architecture room 104. RSVP here

Thanks to the work of active members, officers and the table team,  all full-time faculty, librarians and academic professionals will be receiving a retroactive pay bump in January’s paycheck of 1.625% across-the-board going back to October 1st, 2019. If you do not see that reflected in your paycheck, please reach out to us. 

When we began negotiations over a year ago, management proposed a 0% across-the-board raise for every year of the contract. It was through our fight both at and away from the table  that pushed the administration to agree to real increases and drastically cut the proposed healthcare increases.

Here is what to expect over the next four years:

 

This means that the merit pool will be at least 1.25% the first two years of the contract and at least 1% the last two.

Look for emails over the upcoming weeks and months as we watch over the implementation of new provisions such as the use of Student Feedback Forms, NTT job security and adjunct appointments, among other topics, and on programs that will help you to know and enforce your and your colleagues’ rights under the contract.

When we fight, we win. Join us on Friday, 01/24 to join our movement to reclaim Our Temple.

 

Welcome 2020!

 

Welcome back to a new semester, the first of this new decade!  We enter this term with a new contract in place, committed to its enforcement and to building on its gains.  Some of the new provisions of the contract will roll out immediately while others will take some time. During this semester:

  • Printed versions of the new contract will be available for every person represented by TAUP and everyone should receive one.  They will be distributed by an individual in your department once they are available. If you would like to help in the distribution of contracts in your department, please email jsiegelaft@gmail.com.

  • Full time academic professionals, faculty and librarians should receive their first raise, retroactive from October 1, 2019, in their January or February paycheck. Please check your paystub, and if you believe you have not received what is due to you, you can contact your departmental administrator or Temple’s Human Resources department. If they tell you that you’ve been paid correctly but you still believe there is a problem, contact TAUP.

  • Before or at the beginning of the semester, adjuncts should have access to a departmental or school orientation, and should be given the contact information for a chair or another faculty member in their department whom they can reach out to for support, consultation, review of course materials, classroom observation or referrals to university resources.

Keep an eye out for future emails announcing the implementation of further contract provisions, including new limits on the use of student feedback forms, new parameters for contract lengths for full-time non-tenure track faculty, and, for adjuncts, new procedures for raises, promotions, and multi-semester contracts.

What We Didn’t Get and How We Plan to Get It

There were things we fought for but were unable to get in this round of negotiations, but there are now four years to prepare for and work toward a number of the most challenging issues.  Some of these include:

  • Childcare support.

  • Increasing the number/percentage of tenure-track and full-time positions.

  • Increasing the diversity of the individuals who teach, mentor, and support the diverse group of students served at Temple.

It’s been an exciting time to see what unions have been able to achieve across the country–in the last year alone, the teachers’ union in Los Angeles won smaller class sizes and more investment in education; the union in Chicago won more support staff for students in Chicago’s public schools; the union at Rutgers won equity raises for women faculty and faculty of color and $20 million for diversity hiring.  Working in solidarity, the seemingly impossible becomes possible.

Working together, scales can be re-balanced.  
We can fight for changes at Temple that will make it a better place to work, teach, and conduct research;  but, in order to do so, more individuals need to be involved in representing the concerns of their schools and departments. We can exercise the strength that we have only when people in every department at the university are organized, prepared, and working together.

TAUP wishes all of us a rewarding and exciting semester.  We look forward to working together for a vision of Temple that realizes our deeply-held values and results in a university that reflects Our Temple.

TAUP is holding a Members’ Retreat on January 24th from 12:00-5:00 p.m. to discuss the path forward.
What are you willing to fight for? What should we all be fighting for together? RSVP to join us and be heard at this important gathering.