Millersville University

Letter to State APSCUF President Pat Heilman From APSCUF-MU President John McLarnon
Sent September 10, 2007

President Heilman

On 11 July – ten days after you and the Governor announced that a Tentative Contract Agreement had been reached between APSCUF and the PASSHE – you advised us that “specific contract language will be sent next week.” That week ended on 21 July. Almost immediately after that date, people started asking where the contract language was, what was the delay, and why we were being kept completely in the dark regarding what was transpiring.

On July 26th you announced “there have been some major glitches in contract language (areas where the sides do not agree) so it doesn’t look as if contract language will be available for tomorrow.” During the teleconference the following day, you promised that the contract language would be “forthcoming.” Many of us made the mistake of thinking that meant some time in the next week – two weeks at most. Six days later, of course, you disseminated your now famous “mistakes were made” letter. We did note that you did not admit to making any mistakes yourself, despite your active and apparently intimate involvement in the negotiations process. We infer your involvement from Alan Benn’s statement on July 1st that “Pat, Bill, and Jim are working their asses off to get this thing [a tentative agreement] done.” All we received, however, was the letter. We did not receive copies of the Tentative Agreement. We did not get that until Mike Gambone at Kutztown advised on August 2nd that he had a copy of the TA and was going to distribute it to his members. In his letter, he urged that the APSCUF state leadership end the “information embargo” – a sentiment that was echoed by several of his counterparts. Only after Mike’s letter did C.J. Elder receive permission to disseminate the TA to the members.

In that flurry of e-mails, Jamie Phillips verified what I believed to be the case – the state had been talking of an October date for the fourth-year pay increases in June. So your surprise at that date, or at the state’s determination to stick to it was a case of either a poor memory, stupidity, or lying.

On August 10th you posted a “time line” of events already transpired and things “left to do.” By the time of that letter, you had stopped giving approximate or tentative dates for distribution of the contract language. Then on August 23rd you expressed the “hope” that final contract language would be available by the end of the first week of fall classes (August 31st). Finally, after the August 31st date passed without contract language, you sent out a new timeline that had a ratification vote scheduled for October 2nd and 3rd and a new hope that we would have contract language by noon, September 10th. You reiterated these dates to us (APSCUF-MU’s officers) during our conference call on September 4th.

Noon, September 10th has now passed. We have not seen the contract language. This is the fourth time you have failed to meet a deadline you set for distribution of the language. That is unacceptable. We have been told on more than one occasion by sources within APSCUF, within PASSHE, and independent of but close to both that you, not PASSHE, are the cause of the delay. Your explanation of the “roadblocks” being set by the state were less than convincing. You talked of disagreements regarding which dependents in a domestic partner relationship would be eligible for tuition waiver when the tentative agreement talks exclusively of health benefits. Moreover, by your own admission, this particular issue might affect thirty faculty members across the system. Are you really willing to hold up a ratification vote for a dependent benefit item that might affect .5% of the members? Is that your idea of responsible leadership? You also talked of “annual increments being annual” rather than having the increments specifically delineated year by year. Yet you approved and recommended ratification of an agreement that had exactly such specific language. It would appear that it is you, not the state, who is trying to reopen negotiations through the process of writing the final contract language.

President - John McLarnon
Office Manager - Claire Martin

22 West Cottage Avenue
Schuylkill House
Millersville, PA 17551

Phone: (717) 872-3110
Fax: (717) 871-2218
Email: apscuf-mu@millersville.edu

Hours: Monday - Friday
8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

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