Since March, TAUP has been pressuring the administration to include campus workers in its response to COVID-19 and to communicate clearly and in detail its plans for keeping everyone in the Temple community safe.
What has been learned thus far from these efforts can be found on our COVID-19 page. Although some recent mass emails from the administration and some one-on-one conversations have provided some sense of Temple’s plans, there is still far too much that is unknown. Moreover in our Town Halls, meetings with departments and schools/colleges, and in one-on-one communications it has been made clear that our members have many fundamental objections to and questions about the approach being taken by the administration.
TAUP’s Executive Committee and Health and Safety Committee need your input to understand the full range of concerns about health and safety in the Fall semester. Please fill out this survey by Saturday, 6.27 at noon. Be sure to login using the email address that you receive TAUP communications on, and contact TAUP If you have any difficulties logging in.
The Health and Safety Committee has also sent a list of questions to the administration in preparation for a meet-and-discuss meeting on Thursday. Together, the survey and the recommendations from the Health and Safety Committee will provide the basis of a document setting forth principles, conditions and procedures that need to be in place to safely work in the Fall. The document will be circulated to be voted on next week by all dues-paying members.
In this way, we can all be on the same page, whether we are pushing for changes from within our departments and schools or during meetings with administration. Our approach and expectations will be clear and we can all work in solidarity in ensuring that our campus workplaces are safe.
Given the administration’s initial resistance to including union members in important planning discussions, we can all expect resistance to additional suggested improvements. On a matter as important as health and safety however, the administration needs to make it clear that the principles, procedures and conditions that the faculty, APs and Librarians expect are being taken very seriously. TAUP’s elected leadership will bring these concerns to central administration as everyone works to raise these issues within each of the departments, schools or colleges, especially since it is clear that significant policies are being set at a more local level. Reach out to Jenna Siegel, our Staff Organizer, with your departmental or college based concerns so that we can support you in approaching your leadership and in being heard.
The majority of us have urgent questions and concerns about health and safety, and a key step toward addressing those concerns is through communicating them. Please fill out this survey asap. The Executive and Health and Safety Committees look forward to being guided by your responses.