Faculty rank and file defy leadership, ratify deal in PA

Faculty Union Endorses Contract for Pennsylvania System

A union that represents about 5,500 professors in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education has voted to approve a tentative contract agreement with the state. The vote came after some union leaders had advised their rank-and-file members to reject the collective-bargaining deal.

The tentative contract was announced on July 3, after the union had threatened to go on strike over deadlocked negotiations. Then, in August, the union’s executive council cried foul over the contract, saying its final draft omitted some agreements that had been hashed out in the talks. That group of union leaders urged the members to vote down the agreement.

Later in the summer, however, the union’s legislative assembly — a much larger body than the executive council — gave its blessing to the contract. The contract still faces approval by the system’s Board of Governors. —John Gravois (from the Chronicle of Higher Ed news blog)