Tag: solidarity

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Members of many higher ed unions, AAUP chapters including AAUP-Penn, Higher Ed Labor United, and student organizations are coming together across the country to plan a national day of action for higher education on April 17, 2024. The aim is not just to beat back the current attacks on academic freedom, DEI bans, and devastating budget cuts to public institutions in many states. We will mobilize around a unifying national message that links our local struggles with a set of positive demands we can fight for together, including publicly funded higher ed for all, freedom to learn, job security and fair pay, and democratic governance of our institutions. This statement outlines the future we stand for. 

The centerpiece of the day will be simultaneous actions on every campus that can organize one: a teach-in, demonstration, tabling event, or whatever would be useful and feasible for you, oriented to the key issues that you are already organizing around. There will also be a national event focused on the function of higher education for democracy. If you are interested in getting involved:

April 17 Day of Action Events: How to Participate and Next Steps
1) Make a plan with your union for a campus/local action on April 17
2) Have your union endorse the statement The Future We Stand For (members: AAUP-Penn has already endorsed)
3) Important: Register your union’s participation and endorsement by filling out this form!

National Teach-In
In addition to the campus actions that will be the main focus of the day, there will be a live-streamed National Teach-in on the function of higher education for democracy at 5pm EST on April 17 (click here to register). Many campuses are organizing watch parties with live discussion, either in addition to a local action or as their event.

Upcoming Planning Meeting on 3/29
If you’re looking to get involved or if you have questions, join the next open meeting on Friday, March 29 at 1pm EST via Zoom (click here to join). Learn about the National Day of Action, discuss what you’re experiencing on your campus, and think about the kind of action you could organize on April 17.

Save the date: follow-up meetings
We hope this first National Day of Action will be a springboard for ongoing mobilization together! So after April 17, join us for two follow-up meetings to plan next steps:

Fri, April 26, 2-3pm EST (click here to join)
Mon, May 6, 1-2pm EST (click here to join)

For further information, visit dayofactionforhighered.org.

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As the historic unionization wave continues on our campus, especially as Penn graduate student workers in GET-UP gear up to vote for their union this spring after a highly successful organizing campaign, now is a crucial time for faculty as well as Penn employees across job categories to educate ourselves and each other on the right to organize.

AAUP–Penn is honored to host a lecture and conversation on February 27th with an expert on the subject, Janice R. Bellace, Samuel Blank Professor Emerita of Legal Studies in the Wharton School and past Chair of the International Labor Organization’s Committee of Experts, who will discuss freedom of association and unionization as human rights. Join us on 2/27 at 4pm EST on zoom to hear Janice R. Bellace speak on “Graduate Student Workers’ Human Right to Organize.”

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Our campus is in the midst of an extraordinary wave of organizing, with RA’s United holding an election next week and GET-UP preparing to file the following week. Since Penn’s central administration has launched anti-union campaigns against student workers (crafted by the law firm Cozen O’Connor) and is attempting to enlist faculty in their anti-union messaging, this is an important time for faculty to educate ourselves and each other about unionization.

To that end, AAUP–Penn is holding a series of fall conversations with faculty to offer some background on the nature of unions in higher ed and on the process of unionization, address any questions or concerns you may have (or that you’ve heard expressed by colleagues), and clarify some misleading information coming from the administration. The next two sessions will take place on October 3 at noon in Fisher-Bennett 135 and on October 20 at noon on zoom (register via the QR code on the flyer below for the meeting link). Please come to one and bring a colleague!

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This spring, we have been inspired by the growth of union organizing at Penn. Resident advisors who work in the dorms filed for a union election in March; graduate research assistants and teaching assistants in GET-UP went public with their organizing drive in April; and residents at Penn Medicine won their union election in May. Meanwhile, Penn Museum Workers United is pushing ahead with their campaign to win a first contract.

The university administration has launched anti-union campaigns in response to all these mobilizations and is now trying to enlist faculty in anti-union activity.  Just last week, all standing faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences received an email from administrators directing us to websites that present anti-union talking points for us to pass along to graduate student workers.  It is wrong for the administration to attempt to make us conduits for anti-union messages. Moreover, it is wrong for the administration to run anti-union campaigns at all.

Our Response

This week we delivered a letter to administrators calling on them to take down all anti-union websites and end the anti-union campaigns. We hope you’ll read and share it.

Together over the next several months, we will work to educate colleagues about anti-union campaigns to make sure that we do not pass along anti-union messages. As many of us know, anti-union campaigns can be subtle: employers present their communications as purportedly neutral answers to frequently asked questions.  As a result, even faculty who support unions might not immediately recognize these websites for what they are.  

To educate ourselves and our colleagues, we have created an annotated version of the Provost’s guidance to faculty. Please read it, share it with colleagues, and stay tuned for upcoming information sessions and opportunities to get involved. 

Letter-on-Antiunion-Campaigns-1Download
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Penn Museum Workers United need your support in their contract negotiations, so they are holding a Rally for Fair Pay on Thursday, June 8th starting at 5:30pm outside the main entrance to the Penn Museum. All are welcome!

AAUP–Penn members as well as friends in other campus and local unions are urged to attend and help send a clear message to Museum management and to Penn that the whole community is watching and it is time to negotiate a fair contract now. All of us who work at this University have an interest in seeing all Penn employees paid enough to live securely in Philly, and in seeing the Museum keep the talented staff whose work it relies on every day.

You can read AAUP–Penn’s letter of support for PMWU here, calling on President Magill, Director Chris Woods, and museum management to accept their reasonable wage proposals. Come show up for our museum worker colleagues and stand in solidarity with PMWU this Thursday afternoon!

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Our friends and colleagues in Penn Museum Workers United (AFSCME DC47 Local 397) are currently negotiating their first contract. They have waited long enough to do so (having organized in May 2021 and endured a relentless anti-union campaign), and there is a lot at stake: above all, wages that would allow them to live in dignity in Philadelphia. A third of PMWU members earn between $15.75 and $20 per hour; they are underpaid compared with their counterparts at other museums, as well as with Penn library workers who perform similar types of work and with Penn housekeeping workers in Teamsters Local 115. If the Museum can afford to spend $100 million on capital projects, it seems clear that it can also afford to pay its workers fairly. In fact, we believe that it can’t afford not to do so. It is in the interest of the institution to retain talented staff and prevent the high rates of turnover and instability that currently result from inadequate pay.

On June 4th, AAUP–Penn’s Executive Committee sent a letter to Penn President Liz Magill, Penn Museum Director Chris Woods, and Penn Museum Chief Operating Officer Genny Boccardo-Dubey calling on Museum management to accept the reasonable wage proposals of our colleagues in PMWU. You can read our letter below.

We stand in solidarity with Penn Museum workers, and we are committed to seeing that the University and the Museum meet their demands and negotiate a fair contract.

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Penn housekeepers, grounds workers, and transportation workers in Teamsters Local 115 are celebrating a hard-fought contract victory. A campaign led by rank-and-file members won an end to the inequitable two-tier wage system that pays different hourly rates for the same work. Their new contract will phase out two-tier pay over a 5-year period, with annual raises between 3.5–4% putting all housekeepers on a progression to the top-level wage ($28.68/hr) by 2026.

This is a tremendous win in a fight taking place at so many workplaces for equal pay for equal work. Bargaining surveys, rallies at the union hall and on campus, flyers and messaging in multiple languages, outreach to new members, and the determination to vote no if necessary made it happen. Member-led organizing gets the goods! Our warmest congratulations to the Teamsters 115 members who didn’t back down on their core demand and showed us all what’s possible. Solidarity!

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Please mark your calendars and plan to come on Tuesday (6/21) 4:30–6 to Cira Green rooftop park/bar to have a drink together with AAUP–Penn members and many friends across unions at our first Labor Solidarity Happy Hour! Feel free to share the flyer and bring friends, kids, etc.

It should be a nice, relaxed occasion to catch up and to connect with library workers, grad workers and faculty across ranks, staff, Penn Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art workers, maintenance and grounds workers and bus drivers in Teamsters Local 115, and folks from other locals and campus orgs. Excited to see you there!

N.B. We’ve chosen an outdoor location with Covid safety in mind, and masking is encouraged when you’re not eating or drinking. Alternatively, if you are out of town or avoiding in-person social events and would like to attend a separate zoom happy hour: please let us know via this form.

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Get ready for a week of rallies at Penn and in Philly!

  • Tomorrow (Tuesday, June 14) evening, come join museum workers in the Philadelphia Museum of Art Union (AFSCME DC47 Local 397) on the Rocky steps at 6pm for a big rally for a fair contract. These workers have kept the Museum running but have been without a contract for 22 months; they need fair pay, affordable health insurance, and protection from harassment at work. Help them send a clear message to the Museum that enough is enough; the time for a fair contract is now! If you can’t be there in person, you can also support them by contributing to their strike fund.
  • And if you are on or near campus this Wednesday, June 15, come stand with Teamsters Local 115—Penn maintenance workers, grounds workers, and bus drivers—at 3pm on College Green for their next rally for a fair contract and against the racist two-tier wage system (flyers for both rallies below).

Let’s show these workers at the Museum and on our campus that we stand with them!

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Members of Teamsters Local 115 (representing Penn housekeeping, maintenance workers and more) and the Philly Security Officers Union rallied together in front of College Hall today (June 2, 2022) for a fair contract with wage increases, no givebacks of their benefits, and an end to the racist two-tier wage system that pays different hourly rates for the same work. AAUP–Penn members came out to rally in support of this coalition of more than 700 essential workers who have kept our campus running through a pandemic and whose work deserves respect. We stand in solidarity with them as they demand equal pay for equal work at Penn and a fair contract now.

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