Tentative agreement reached in Pa. university faculty strike

The three-day-old strike at Pennsylvania's 14 state-supported universities is over.

Faculty and administrators on Friday afternoon reached a tentative agreement on a three-year contract running through June 30, 2018.

The agreement will end the first faculty strike in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education's 34-year history. The strike began Wednesday and brought education for 105,000 students to a midsemester halt.

The strike officially ends at midnight, but the union directed members to leave the picket lines immediately. Classes and activities will resume Saturday with full faculty participation.

Faculty and the administration had been trying to get a four-year deal, but couldn't make that work, said Kenneth M. Mash, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties union.

"That's the point on which we could agree," he said of the three-year deal. "That's the point at which we stopped."

The system said in a release on its website that faculty were granted raises and agreed to health-care concessions.

Neither side would provide more details. The system said contract terms won't be released until faculty ratify the pact and it is approved by the system's board of governors.

At West Chester University, which is scheduled to host homecoming Saturday, faculty and students cheered on the picket lines.

"We're super pumped," said senior Sabina Sister, 21, of Israel. "We're really happy that we were able to resolve this before homecoming so everybody can go out and enjoy it."

Bridget McGinn, 19, a West Chester sophomore from Easton, Pa., will be able to play the saxophone with the marching band at homecoming. Had the strike continued, the band wouldn't have been able to play, she said.

"Lots of us are very excited that we're going to be able to have the opportunity to perform," she said.

Mash said the union was pleased with the deal.

"Our primary goals were to preserve quality education for our students, protect our adjuncts from exploitation, and make sure the varieties of faculty work are respected," he said.

State system officials also were happy.

"We are pleased to get to this point and look forward to the conclusion of the process," Board Chair Cynthia D. Shapira said in a statement.

Both the union and the state system credited Gov. Wolf —a member of the system's board of governors — as being pivotal in helping the sides reach an agreement.

"We did it only because the governor got involved," said Mash, a political science professor at East Stroudsburg University. "He and his team really pushed.  ...  They were the intermediaries in making it happen."

Several other legislative leaders also helped, he said.

"Throughout this process, and during my conversations with both sides, the students and families were my focus," Wolf said in a statement. "Coming to a final agreement was challenging, and it took a lot of effort from everyone involved.  ... "

The sides had been at odds over salaries and health insurance.

Under the system's most recent proposal, faculty raises would have ranged from about 7.25 percent to 17.25 percent over a four-year contract that would cover 2015-16 retroactively and run through June 2019. Faculty also would have received an additional cash payment of $1,000 in January 2017 as part of the agreement.

The system's health care proposal would have increased faculty's share of the insurance premium by about $7 to $14 every two weeks, going from 15 percent of the premium to 18 percent. Faculty also would have faced new deductibles, co-payment requirements for some medical services, and higher prescription co-payments.

It's unclear how much the tentative agreement differs from this proposal other than being one year shorter.

The starting salary for a full-time instructor is $46,609, with the top of scale $112,238 for an experienced full professor.

Universities in the system in addition to West Chester and East Stroudsburg, are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, and Slippery Rock.

The system had kept campuses open during the strike, including dining halls and residence halls. But classes had come to a virtual halt with the majority of faculty honoring picket lines.