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TAUP offers Long Term Care Insurance:

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The Temple Association of University Professionals (TAUP) is excited to introduce a Long-Term Care insurance [LTCi] program as a benefit for our dues-paying members, underwritten by Transamerica Life Insurance Company. Since Temple’s administration has for some years not offered this benefit and since these costs are not covered by health insurance, disability insurance or under Medicare, TAUP has decided to make this insurance benefit available to both full-time and adjunct dues-paying members on a voluntary, participant-paid basis, for a limited time only.

LTCi pays for the expenses associated with needing extended care at home or a stay in a Long-Term Care facility. The cost of Long-Term Care can vary based upon your location, the future costs of care and for how long care is needed. An average stay in a Long-Term Care facility is almost 2.5 years1 and the current average cost of nursing home care in Pennsylvania is $316/day2. Through this special offering at TAUP, you can design a Long-Term Care insurance plan that fits your unique needs and budget.

There are additional advantages to you under this program:

Unisex Pricing is available. Most individual LTCi offerings employ gender-based pricing, where rates for women are more expensive than for males.
Simplified Issue Underwriting – active employees ages 18 – 65 working at least 30 hours per week need only answer 10 Simplified Issue Health Questions.
Your spouse/domestic partner, family members & extended family are also eligible to participate in the program.
Couples Discounts of up to 30% are also available.
This voluntary benefit will be offered during the Long-Term Care insurance open enrollment period, which commences on January 14, 2019. Prior to open enrollment, you can learn more during on-campus educational workshops. These will be held on Wednesday, December 5th at 12PM and 1PM, and Thursday, December 6th at 12:30PM and 1:30PM. The location will be announced via email. Please CLICK HERE to RSVP today!

During the upcoming limited enrollment period, you will have the opportunity to meet with Harris Kivitz, our Long-Term Care Insurance Specialist, to design a plan that fits your budget. You can meet with Harris in person or online & over the phone.

Please note that LTCi does not make sense for everyone. The policy-holder should have sufficient financial assets to protect in order to justify the premiums. But even if you are not in a position to benefit from it directly, your family members may be. If you have questions about this, please contact Harris.

Once this enrollment period ends, the Simplified Issue Underwriting will only be available to new hires. Find out more about this new benefit and direct any questions to Harris Kivitz by calling 215.901.7905 or emailing kivitz1@verizon.net.

 

TAUP Stadium Survey Invitation

Recent comments by university officials indicate that the plan to build a 35000-seat on-campus football stadium continues to be considered, though reportedly no final decision has been made.  It is possible that this will be a topic of discussion at the Board of Trustees meeting on October 10th.

This decision would have significant economic effects, thereby affecting the issues that TAUP negotiates over, and it would have profound effects of many kinds on the university our members serve.   TAUP thus believes it is particularly important that faculty, librarians, and academic professionals make their views known now.  While there have been meetings between administrators and faculty at many schools and with representatives from the Faculty Senate, there has no been no attempt to gauge the opinions of our members as a whole.

So we would appreciate it if you would respond to the following survey, which is designed to gauge the attitudes of all members of our bargaining unit, give faculty more of a voice in this discussion, and provide guidance to TAUP about our members’ concerns as we look toward bargaining a new contract in 2019.  Responses will remain anonymous.  We will report the findings in a future e-Bulletin.

An FAQ from the administration on the stadium, which makes a case for the project, can be found here.  Some columns in The Faculty Herald raising questions about the wisdom of building a stadium can be found here. A recent story on The Stadium Stompers, a community group opposing the stadium, can be found here.

Responses will be collected by TAUP only and only aggregate responses and discursive responses with any identifying information stripped will be shared.  You do not have to be a TAUP member to participate.

The survey link is http://www.surveyshare.com/s/AYACH3A.
Use the full email address at which you received this message (e.g. firstname.lastname@temple.edu) as your unique login to access the survey. Please contact the TAUP office (taupaft@gmail.com) if you experience problems.

Sincerely,

Steve Newman, President
Jennie Shanker, Vice President
Norma Corrales-Martin, Treasurer

An Adjunct Couple Speaks for Contract Ratification

Our names are Canan and James. We’re partners and we both teach as adjunct faculty in the Department of Sociology. As adjunct faculty at Temple University, we deserve to be recognized as workers who contribute to the university’s mission to provide excellence in teaching to Temple’s diverse and engaged student population. That’s why we’re excited to be members of TAUP and ratify our first-ever union contract with an overwhelming YES  vote.

We all know too well that adjunct labor and the particular difficulties of adjunct life often remain hidden. In many cases, full-time faculty have never met the adjunct faculty in their own departments who teach a large portion of the classes and keep departments running.  Most students don’t really know if their instructor is an adjunct, and if they do, what that means for our day-to-day life. Many don’t  know what a low percentage of the tuition they pay actually goes toward paying their adjunct instructors.

Ratifying this contract will give adjuncts an immediate pay bump from $1300/credit to $1425, and another raise next year to $1500. It provides 50% and 25% health care subsidies to adjuncts.  It also lays the groundwork for adjuncts to build meaningful job security, seniority, and a promotion structure into future contracts. This contract shines light on our conditions as precarious adjunct labor, and recognizes adjuncts not simply as miscellaneous faces in the crowd, but as significant workers who put our time and energy into educating Temple’s diverse student population.

Uniting with full-time faculty in the bargaining process provides space for us to share our mutual concerns and use our strength in numbers to win. By working under a contract, adjunct faculty can begin to work towards obtaining the rights to a basic and decent livelihood that all university workers deserve. All members of TAUP will have the opportunity to ratify this contract between September 25 – 29 in an online vote. Add your name here if you plan on helping our first contract pass with an overwhelming YES vote.

In solidarity,
Canan Tanir

James Parisot

Adjunct Instructors, Sociology