Category: eBulletins

Your Vote Needed on Amendments to the  AFT-Pennsylvania Constitution!

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Dear Members of TAUP,

 

TAUP is affiliated at the state level with the American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania (AFTPA), which represents 36,000 members, including teachers and school-related personnel, health care professionals, higher education faculty members and state employees.  AFTPA provides TAUP with valuable resources, training, and advice.

 

After the 2017 Biennial conference, the Executive Committee voted to move forward two amendments on electing Vice Presidents of the AFTPA.   Vice Presidents play an important role in the AFTPA, serving on the Executive Council that oversees the statewide union’s finances  and other business, including its biennial convention.   You can find the AFTPA Constitution and Bylaws here.

 

●      The first amendment lowers the number of members that larger local chapters need to elect Vice Presidents of AFTPA.

 

●        The second amendment deals specifically with higher education.  At this year’s Biennial Convention, local affiliates were informed that Higher Education would no longer be considered a “region” of its own, entitled to elect its own Vice President.  Its locals, if not large enough to elect their own Vice Presidents, would thus vote as part of geographical regions along with K-12 and other affiliates.  The amendment seeks to reverse this decision by re-affirming  “Colleges and Higher Education” as its own region.

 

The Executive Committee of TAUP recommends voting “yes” on both amendments. The first would make it more likely that TAUP would be eligible to elect its own Vice President to AFTPA, thereby giving us more of a voice.  The second rightly acknowledges that there is a community of interest among colleges and universities.  That community of interest would be diluted if higher ed locals under the threshold for having their own Vice President had to vote with all of the K-12 locals in their geographical region.

 

The more votes we pass on to the AFTPA, the stronger our voice!

 

 Your ballot is here.  Please take a moment to cast your vote now. The deadline for doing so will be October 13th at noon.

Come Help Us Work for Childcare Benefits for Our Members

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Are you willing to work toward providing access to childcare benefits for ALL Temple University faculty, librarians, and academic professionals?

If so, please join with other interested members of our bargaining unit at 3:00 to 4:30 on Wednesday, Oct 25 in Ritter 477A to plan what Temple can do to support parents who need child care or after school care for their infants, preschoolers, or school-age children.

On campus child care for infants and young children can be an effective tool for recruiting new, young faculty members, retaining existing faculty members, and increasing the availability of faculty members to students on campus.   Child care resources (such as an on-campus facility, a discounted fee for service for child care or after school care) offer a powerful incentive for faculty members and students to spend more time on campus and for faculty and staff to continue their employment at Temple University. As the recruitment and retention of faculty members becomes more difficult due to compressed salaries in the public sector, benefits beyond salary become a critical tool in recruiting and retaining talent.  Finally, an on-campus setting will provide research and teaching opportunities for Temple University faculty, librarians, academic professionals, and students.

At the October 25 meeting, we will:

  1. Briefly review the history of child care at Temple and TAUP attempts to bargain with the University to provide child care or after school care for faculty.
  2. Describe how Temple could support child care and even elder care for families.
  3. Solicit your feedback and additional ideas.
  4. Recruit additional members to serve on the Faculty Senate/TAUP Committee that was authorized by the 2014-2019 TAUP contract to formulate proposals for child care resources.
  5. Develop plans to update the “Proposal to Develop Child Care Benefits for Dependent Children” joint report from the TAUP and Faculty Senate Committee submitted to the University in November 2015.

All members of the bargaining unit are welcome to attend.  Dues-paying members who are interested but are unable to attend should contact Marsha Weinraub, Psychology Department, for more information: Marsha.weinraub@temple.edu.  If you are a member of the bargaining unit but do not pay dues to TAUP and are interested in this effort, please contact Michael Sachs, President of the Faculty Senate:  msachs@temple.edu.

The newly approved plan to move ahead on the Alpha Center at Temple, a new PreK under the aegis of the College of Education is great news!  But this center may not do enough to provide much needed access to affordable, accessible, quality child care at Temple University for faculty and staff. According to sources at the College of Education, access to Temple staff, faculty and students will be limited.  So if you want to work for childcare benefits for ALL Temple University faculty, librarians, and academic professionals, please come to the meeting on the 25th or get in touch with us!

Come to a Discussion of _The Fight for America’s Schools_ (12/4 6:00-8:00 p.m, Kiva Auditorium)!

TAUP urges you to attend a discussion and book signing for an exciting new volume edited by TAUP member Barbara Ferman (Political Science), The Fight for America’s Schools: Grassroots Organizing in Education (Harvard Education Press). Ferman_flyer_link_revised

Prof. Ferman will be joined by local activists, including TAUP’s own Wende Marshall, Chair of our Adjunct Constituency Council.  The topic will be how we can build broad coalitions from Pre-K thru PhD in the fight to resist market funadmentalist “reforms” and save Public Education. The discussion will be followed by a book signing.

For those not familiar with Temple’s campus, Kiva Auditorium is in Ritter Hall Annex, N. 13th and Montogomery.

Hope to see you there to discuss and celebrate this important new book!