About Our Collective Mood

Those of you who know me won’t be surprised that I’m furious this morning about the turn of events in our negotiations with PASSHE. My mood isn’t improved by the press coverage (for example, see this story on PennLive from last night, which makes a couple of very misleading claims and gives a largely open microphone to PASSHE’s spokesperson).

So yeah, I’m mad. Like many of us, I hoped the negotiating sessions over the last week represented a breakthrough–at least to the extent that they were happening, finally–and to hear that PASSHE tanked them after days of hard work doesn’t sit well (for a more thorough articulation of what broke down, read Kevin Mahoney’s piece on today’s Raging Chicken Press) .

However, anger by itself accomplishes very little. So it’s important for us as a campus and as a union to try to focus our reaction a little differently. Does PASSHE deserve our ire? Sure. But what they deserve even more is to face the steady, clear resolve of a faculty who can say two things with confidence:

1. We know our students, our campuses, our colleagues, and quite frankly the national higher education landscape better than management does, which means that their claims to be speaking on anyone’s behalf but their own are largely empty.
2. Nobody deserves to get yanked around by their management the way we are right now, and if we have to strike to make that point loudly enough for them to hear it, then that’s what we have to do.

We’ve been clear since the beginning of the negotiating cycle that we don’t want to strike. Yesterday, I was ready to do it if our leadership calls it; today I’m more so. Whatever PASSHE is playing at, whether they’re really pushing us to strike or just being intransigent, we all need to hear this much: be ready, and if you weren’t sure we really meant it, WE REALLY MEAN IT!