How can we help students weather these crises? Temple’s own Prof. Sara Goldrick-Rab has come up with one way–the Faculty and Students Together (or FAST) Fund.  She has established chapters across the country, and she has honored TAUP by selecting us to administer the FAST Fund at Temple.  

Since its founding two years ago, the FAST Fund at Temple has helped more than 30 students with grants of approximately $500.  Their stories are harrowing: a student cast out by his family after coming out; another whose mother was rendered unable to help with expenses when she was laid off during the government shutdown; many students who struggle to get by while having to work jobs that just don’t pay enough or whose financial aid packages are insufficient.  

However, for us to keep doing this great work, the FAST Fund needs funds.  We have had a couple of very generous donors who have given thousands of dollars in addition to the seed money provided by Prof. Goldrick-Rab.  But to make sure that the Fund continues to help students, we need to broaden our base of support. So we appeal to you to help the students we teach, guide, and advise.  The amount of these grants may not be large, but we know that they make the difference between a student staying at Temple or withdrawing for the semester or perhaps for good.

Please donate here, and, when you donate, please mention Temple in the space for comments so that the donation will make its way to our particular fund. 

Thank you!

NTT Job Security

The Tentative Agreement:

• sets default contracts of 3+ years for full-time non-tenure track faculty with 6 or more years service, excepting those who are predominantly or entirely funded by research grants.
• requires a letter from the Dean documenting the reasons for any contract of less than 3 years or shorter than the prior contract for NTTs who have served 6 years or longer 

The union contract already requires that after an NTT’s 3rd year, new appointments should be multi-year (if not, a letter of explanation must be provided).  This new language begins to offer additional job security for those who have proven their value to Temple over a longer term.

 

Course Releases for Union Work and other Anti-Union Proposals

The other Tentative Agreement signed on Friday addresses the issue of course releases for union work.  

The contract allots TAUP 15 credit-hours per semester of release time to assign to members who do work essential to the Union.  The administration initially proposed eliminating this and other union rights from the contract entirely, including a proposal to kick us out of our on-campus office and another to deny us any role in new faculty orientations.  

TAUP has rejected all of these proposals.  In the tentative agreement we did acknowledge the administration’s concern that with our new decentralized budget system, RCM, the burden of paying for the course releases should not fall too heavily on any one college/school.  The resulting agreement states that, starting in academic year 21-22, no college or school will be asked to absorb more than 6 hours of release time a semester. TAUP does have the option of requesting 3 more hours out of the 15 total by compensating the college/school at an adjunct rate.  

The administration’s other anti-union proposals–which we do not accept–remain on the table.  These proposals need to be dropped so they do not stand in the way of a settlement.

 

Crucial Issues Left on the Table

Even with this welcome progress, there are many crucial issues to resolve:

• Wages:  The administration’s last proposal remains under inflation
• Healthcare:  The administration’s last proposal includes significant increases in healthcare premiums and co-pays for specialists, and the introduction of deductibles.  All told, these proposal drives down their effective wage proposal to a raise of almost exactly 1% a year for full-time members.
• Maternity leave for librarians:  As we have explained in prior updates, the current system afford librarians only the sick leave they have accrued at the rate of 10 days a year, and only up to 6 or 8 weeks depending on the type of delivery. We have made a proposal to remedy this. 
• NTT Pensions:  NTTs receive a 1.5% smaller match from the university for their  pensions than tenure-track faculty. We do not see the justification for this and have proposed closing that gap. 
• Tuition benefits at other schools:  To make some headway on this issue, the proposal  is now focusing on The Tuition Exchange.  It allows the dependents of full-time TAUP bargaining unit members to apply for special scholarships at nearly 700 colleges and universities.  The 2019-20 value of the scholarship is either tuition at the school in question or $37,000, whichever is lower. 
• Tenure-Track Hiring:  Our current proposal is for a commitment from the administration to maintain the current number of tenure-track faculty through the end of this contract unless there is a financial exigency severe enough to trigger retrenchment.  It is the least the administration can do to live up to the commitment made in the prior contract to a “sizable complement of tenure-track faculty.”   

 

Despite this past commitment, the administration insists that hiring is solely a management right and thus not  a proper topic for negotiation. We urge them to reconsider on this critical matter.

As our review of our Temple’s newly released audited financial shows, Temple can afford the reasonable proposals on wages,  NTT pensions, and maternity leave for librarians that the union is proposing.  The large healthcare givebacks they are proposing are not financially necessary.  

 

We head into the next negotiating session on the 25th seeking a fair settlement on these and other compensation issues that remain on the table. 

Members are welcome to attend; RSVP here. 

Childcare

Tuesday’s session began with members giving testimony about the urgent need for provisions in our contract for childcare and parental leave for librarians and academic professionals. 

Marsha Weinraub, Laura Carnell Professor of Psychology, Chair of TAUP’s Tenure-Track Constituency Council, and Chair of the joint Faculty Senate/TAUP Child Care Committee gave an eloquent presentation on the reasons why the administration should consider providing some form of childcare as part of these negotiations. 

Our current proposal is for the university to offer

• 10% subsidies for childcare, which increase to 15% for facilities in Temple’s neighborhood  
• Backup care, which would provide 10 days per year either at a facility or for in-home care for those caring for children or elderly parents when their primary childcare or eldercare option is unavailable or a child is sick and thus can’t be placed in childcare.   

Prof. Weinraub cited recent studies that found that childcare had a significant impact on the careers of women in STEM fields and elsewhere. She also referred to the TAUP/Senate proposals,  delivered to the administration 18 months ago as called for in a side letter in our prior contract: “The University understands that TAUP and the Faculty Senate may work to formulate proposals for child care resources at the University. The University shall review, consider, and respond to any proposals in a timely fashion.” Since the report was delivered, there has been no formal response from the administration despite repeated inquiries and despite the fact that the issue was foregrounded in early settlement discussions in the Spring. It appears that this critical issue is not being seriously considered by the university.

Temple does provide a work-life benefit that TAUP fought hard to win; it allows tenure-track faculty who are new mothers or fathers to have a semester off from teaching; full-time non-tenure track faculty can apply for this benefit.  There is no other childcare support at Temple.

The report by the joint TAUP/Faculty Senate Committee, available here, shows that Temple is an outlier compared to our comparator and aspirant universities in not providing any support for childcare.  The lack of this benefit damages the productivity of members and Temple as a whole. It hurts Temple in their ability to hire and retain talented employees who are parents. 

The administration’s response was that TAUP does not represent everyone on campus affected by childcare issues, which they claim gives us no grounds for bargaining.  But a side letter in the 2014 contract both parties signed explicitly accords TAUP a role in making proposals on this issue. The administration’s position is puzzling, disappointing, and disrespectful to those who have done the important and remarkable work on this issue.    

 

Parental Leave

Librarians Leanne Finnigan and Jill Luedke attested to the insufficiency of the current allotment of maternity leave for librarians and academic professionals; they can make use of only 6-8 weeks of the sick leave they have accrued–the amount of time depends on the type of delivery.  Since sick leave accrues at the rate of 10 days per year, there is a strong possibility that a prospective parent will have considerably less than 6 or 8 weeks available. If they have used up their sick leave for maternity leave, there is no available paid time off if they become ill or have to tend to a sick child.  They then have no choice but to take weeks, even months, of unpaid leave to attend to their familial responsibilities. There is no provision for leave for either mothers or fathers beyond this restricted amount of maternity leave.

TAUP’s proposal offers new parents 8 weeks paid parental leave for a child whether arriving biologically, by adoption, or by fosterage, with 4 more weeks if medically justifiable. This blends elements of the maternity and work-life benefit benefits available to full-time faculty who are new parents. There are approximately 50 librarians and academic professionals all told, so the yearly cost would be minimal.  

Instead of the direct “no” we received on childcare, the administration’s response was that all proposals have to be considered together in terms of their cost. We look forward to hearing from the administration how this urgent issue might be addressed. 

The two sides worked separately with the mediator for the rest of the session to try to craft a comprehensive settlement that would address the outstanding issues, including:

• Wages
• Healthcare
• NTT job security
• NTT pension parity
• Tuition benefits at other schools
• The university’s commitment to a “sizable complement of tenure-track faculty,” as stated in our contract. 

Since no new formal proposals were offered by either side,  the last proposals the administration put on the table are where they are at.  Their health care proposal includes significant increases in healthcare premiums and co-pays for specialists, and the introduction of deductibles.  These increases are hard on all members but particularly tough on families. Their latest wage proposal also remains on the table, which is under the projected rate of inflation. In other words, the administration has thus far proposed what is effectively a pay cut. TAUP cannot accept these proposals as they currently stand. 

Since the last full-time contract was ratified 5 years ago, there have been many changes in the world and at the university.  The contract must address the economic and non-economic challenges and pressures that TAUP members feel as a result of the decentralized budget system installed in the interim (a.k.a. RCM) and the increasing reach of the gig economy. 

Like the administration, TAUP is eager to settle this contract, and we will be meeting all day Friday to work toward an agreement.  Members of the bargaining unit are welcome to attend. RSVP here.