PSC declares faculty contract at impasse


  • September 30, 2014
  • /   Ben Sheffler
  • /   education

The Pensacola State College Faculty Association and Pensacola State College administration’s attempts to negotiate the faculty’s collective bargaining agreement went to impasse late last week, after more than a year and a half of negotiating.

The two sides met on Sept. 19 and the administration agreed to some of the requests from the faculty association. Then faculty were given a week to accept the proposal.

“We came back to the table this past Friday with additional concession requests (from the PSCFA),” said PSC President Ed Meadows. “We went ahead and declared impasse, and we’ll go through the impasse process.”

Meadows said the process includes nonbinding arbitration, with the final determination to be made by the PSC Board of Trustees. He also said the process allows the faculty to continue to negotiate if they so choose.

“We have been negotiating in good faith with PSC’s faculty association for more than a year and a half and feel that we have been fair to all with the terms of the contract,” Meadows said in a press release. “I am very disappointed that the faculty association bargaining team did not agree to the terms in the proposed contract and will not be moving it forward to our faculty for ratification.”

Paige Anderson, faculty association president, and some of the faculty also are disappointed that negotiations have come to impasse.

“We’re disappointed that the administration didn’t seem to pay attention to the faculty voting down the previous contract,” Anderson said. “There were a couple of mild concessions, but they weren’t on the issues that people voted ‘no’ over.”

The administration’s proposed contracted included a 2 percent raise for all faculty members, retroactive to August 2014, $60,000 for compression pay issues, an increase between promotion steps along with an increase in promotion raises and an increase in overload pay to most of the faculty.

Some of the faculty’s concerns remain with a change in load points for some faculty (which determine an instructor’s standard workload in the classroom) and the hiring of non-tenured track faculty.

Currently, there is no timetable for a resolution.

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