7/24/2020

COVID-19 poses unprecedented challenges to the Temple community.  It endangers lives and livelihoods and faces all of us with wrenching decisions. 

To ensure that Temple meets the challenge of re-opening campus safely, TAUP’s Health and Safety Committee, including experts in epidemiology and nursing, considered information shared with the union by the administration and has advised that the conditions that follow are essential. 

Despite the tremendous efforts made by the Return Team and other members of the campus community, the plans in place to mitigate the threat of COVID-19 on Temple’s campuses will not be enough to prevent  the likelihood of transmission of this dangerous disease.

Even with a more rigorous plan, many experts, including Dr. Laurence Steinberg, (CLA/Psychology), one of the world’s foremost researchers into the behaviors of young adults, raises particular concerns about the level of compliance we can expect. 

We do not see evidence that Temple’s plans to return to campus will result in the safe working conditions demanded by experts and supported by the union’s membership and leaders. 

For this reason, TAUP demands that Temple University not assign any face-to-face work on campus for bargaining unit members.  While not ideal in safer times, the Spring semester has shown that during a crisis we can fulfill the essential function of our jobs online.

The University must base decisions on an ethic centered on care, sound public health policy, equity, transparency, and justice.  The risks to all students, campus employees, and neighbors in the surrounding communities are too great. Unnecessary illness and fatalities must be avoided. No one should have to choose between their life and their livelihood. 

We urge the administration of the University to consider the state of preparedness in relation to the conditions in this document.  TAUP members must be allowed to fulfill the mission of the University online until these conditions are met, or until such time as the threat of the virus becomes insignificant.

 

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TAUP Health and Safety and Executive Committee’s Conditions for Working on Campus During the COVID-19 Pandemic 

 

PERSONNEL MATTERS 

1. The University should rescind its decision to guarantee students face-to-face classes.  Faculty must be empowered to decide what mode of teaching is the most appropriate pedagogy for their class.
2. Members of the bargaining unit who wish to work remotely during the COVID-19 crisis should be allowed to do so without having to answer questions or provide documentation. Access to medical professionals is not readily available for all members of the bargaining unit. Documentation of medical conditions for these individuals may not be possible on short notice
3. Adjunct faculty must immediately be included in, and there must be transparency in processes used to determine who will teach in person. Adjuncts’ accommodation requests must not be divulged before employment offers are made.  
4. No-cost healthcare must be provided through the Temple University Health System for anyone who lacks insurance and must work on campus. 
5. Any member of the bargaining unit who is unable to work due to COVID-19 related reasons must be kept on payroll during the term of their contract. 
6. Faculty who cover courses for instructors who are unable to teach due to COVID-19 related issues must be compensated pro rata based on the overload pay clause in the contract. Adjunct faculty must be compensated pro rata at their current per-credit rate.
7. Bargaining unit members who are the primary caregivers for dependents whose schools or care facilities are closed or on reduced schedules should be permitted to work part time at full salary and benefits.
8. All members of the bargaining unit must have clear ways to report health and safety violations without fear of retaliation. 
9. TAUP representatives must be included in meetings among decision-makers in any further discussions of policy and implementation related to working conditions affected by COVID-19.           ·

 

FACILITIES AND LOGISTICS 

1. Any preventative operations need to be particularly robust and must have clear protocols since the level of compliance may be insufficient to prevent an outbreak on campus. 
2. If face-to-face classes are imposed this fall, Temple must first establish and disclose the metrics in place to determine when and under what conditions in-person instruction will be curtailed. 
3. All facilities must be in compliance with the ASHRAE standards for ventilation and HVAC to prevent COVID-19. 
4. Individual departments, labs, etc., may have specific safety needs, but there must be a uniform standard for safety measures and expected behaviors university-wide. 
5. All members of the bargaining unit must be informed ASAP of the facilities they will be working in this fall and the steps being taken to remediate them. 
6. Every college and department must have adequate maintenance protocols as per relevant guidelines as well as safety equipment and supplies provided by the central University budget.  There must be equity in the distribution of these resources among schools, departments and programs.
   1. The University must supply appropriate PPE (masks, face shields) alongside instructions/training for proper use, conscientious behavior in times of pandemic and safe hygiene for all aspects of campus activities. 
   2. The University must furnish students, employees, and visitors with high-quality fitted masks. No one should be admitted to any Temple-run building without the University-issued mask. 
      1. Masks with valves and handkerchiefs/non-fitted face covers do not protect against the transmission of COVID-19. Standardizing and requiring a specific mask will protect people from unsafe options. 
      2. All students and employees must complete and pass an online learning module on the proper wearing of masks in order to be allowed to return to campus. Mask policy must be consistent and at least as rigorous as the City of Philadelphia’s masking policy. 
   3.  Time between classes must be sufficient to allow for proper cleaning and socially distanced traffic. 
   4. Cleaning and sanitizing supplies must be supplied for all common spaces.
   5. Plexiglas barriers must be available in all classrooms. 
   6. Signage and reminders to distance, wash hands, etc., must be clearly displayed in all campus buildings, departments, elevators, and stairwells.
7. Faculty access to class capture via webcam live stream or Echo360 must be provided for class members who cannot attend in person. Faculty members’ intellectual property rights and students’ right to privacy must be respected in the use of this technology. 
8. There must be procedures for employees to follow if they encounter anyone failing to comply with health and safety regulations (ex: faculty can ask a student to leave, can end class; librarians can ask an individual to leave the library). The policy for enforcing health & safety violations must be clearly outlined by the administration, there must be oversight to ensure that students of color and other minoritized groups are not disproportionately reported or cited, and enforcement should not involve the police.
9. Campus resources that are vital for the health and safety of students must remain fully available. The university can continue to meet student’s needs even in times of fully-online instruction, including but not limited to: housing, medical and mental healthcare, technology resources, student employment, and protection of student grants.
10. Where face-to-face classes occur, classrooms must be cleaned between sessions, and additional time must be scheduled between class times for air re-circulation.
11. Communication must be done with care and must be timely, transparent, and must reflect sound public health policy, equity and justice. Updates (e.g., tests, active cases, hospitalizations) should be provided via email and be publicly accessible via the Temple public-facing website. Residents of the surrounding communities should be made aware of and have access to any TU platform (TU Alerts, etc.) where information is shared among the campus community.
12. Data regarding cases among the campus community should be immediately provided to the College of Public Health to conduct analyses and disseminate results. 
13. The hardships that people with disabilities experience must be addressed through publicizing and providing recommendations as to where access will be either open or limited in buildings, bathrooms and facilities they may need.        

 

TESTING AND CONTACT TRACING 

1. All members of the Temple community should be required to obtain a reliable COVID-19 RT-PCR swab test for virus detection and report the results to Student Health Services or Employee Health Services within one week of returning to campus.
2. Once a baseline is established, a rigorous program of testing must be paired with a robust contact tracing system to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within the Temple community and the community at large. 
   1. All students living in campus housing should be tested at least once every two weeks; other populations working on campus should be tested using a random sampling method. 
   2. Testing should be provided free of charge. 
3. Given the increased vulnerability of students, employees and those in the surrounding communities who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and the understanding that the racist structure of social, political and economic determinants in this country are significantly responsible for increased exposure to SARS-CoV-2, Temple must regularly consult with elected leaders and other representatives from the surrounding community to ensure it is considering their needs and lives as it formulates policies on COVID-19, including the risk posed by bringing thousands of students and employees into a community that is majority Black and Latinx.
4. The process for implementing and enforcing isolation and quarantine protocols among students must be transparent.
5.  Any contacts of a COVID-19 positive member of the Temple community must be required to quarantine & self-monitor for 2 weeks.
6. Members of the bargaining unit and of the campus community must be immediately informed when it is found that they have come into medically significant contact or close proximity with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. ‘Medically significant’ and “close proximity”  should be defined in consultation with the College of Public Health and with reference to the latest research on transmission of COVID-19.