PITTSBURGH _ Faculty who teach at Pennsylvania's 14 state-owned universities have voted by a wide margin to give their union leaders authority to call a strike, according to results announced Monday.
The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties said 93 percent of its members who cast ballots on the campuses over three days last week approved the measure.
The union, locked in a 14-month contract dispute with the State System of Higher Education, did not offer any specific vote totals but indicated that 82 percent of APSCUF's roughly 5,000 professors cast ballots Wednesday through Friday.
The result does not mean a strike is automatic. In fact, further negotiations are scheduled between labor and management trying to avert what would be the first faculty strike across the 107,000 student system that in Western Pennsylvania includes California, Clarion, Edinboro, Indiana and Slippery Rock universities.
The next session is Friday.
But while such votes during previous contract disputes did not ultimately lead to a walk-out, Monday's decision nevertheless raises the stakes in that leaders now can call a work-stoppage on short notice.
Before last week's election, APSCUF's leadership said that if it received an affirmative vote, it would make an announcement within a couple weeks about a fall strike date if a new agreement was not reached.
"The vast majority of faculty clearly grasp the seriousness of the situation," APSCUF president Kenneth Mash said in a statement accompanying Monday's result. "Chancellor Frank Brogan and the State System need to get serious very quickly."
State System spokesman Kenn Marshall said Monday that management remains intent on reaching an agreement that is reasonable in spite of financial challenges facing member schools.
"While we understand the latest APCSUF vote moves the faculty union one step closer to being able to call a potential strike, we remain committed to bargaining with APSCUF to achieve an agreement that is fair to everyone," he said.
Union officials said there are some additional steps they would need to take internally before a job action, but said they could accomplish those items in a phone call if necessary.
"We will not set a date until we have at least one more chance to go to the negotiations table to ensure that we are doing everything we can do," Mash said. "A strike remains the last resort."
In recent weeks, negotiations have flared over issues including management desire for workers to pay a greater share of their health insurance costs and over use of temporary and graduate students in the classroom.
Pay, not counting extra courses and summer work, currently ranges from $46,609 for first-year instructors at the lowest of 13 pay steps to $112,238 for professors at the top.
Negotiators for the system have proposed a one-time $600 cash payment for all full-time members when the contract is approved, then a 1 percent pay increase in January 2018 and a 1 percent pay increase plus a step increase of 2.5 percent or 5 percent depending on seniority in January 2019.
There would be no step increases in 2016 or 2017.
APSCUF-member coaches across the State System are to hold their own strike authorization vote Wednesday and Thursday.
System campuses, in addition to those in Western Pennsylvania, include Bloomsburg, Cheyney, East Stroudsburg, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania.
The State System was created in 1983 from a group of were then teacher colleges. There has never been a strike by its faculty, but strike authorization votes have occurred in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2012.
