Penn State faculty file to hold union election. ‘We haven’t had a voice’

Following a monthslong effort prompted by commonwealth campus closures and other issues, the Penn State Faculty Alliance filed a petition Tuesday to hold a union election for Penn State faculty.

The Penn State Faculty Alliance, a group organizing a unionization effort for full-time, part-time, tenured, tenure-line and non-tenure-line faculty across the university system, has received the support of more than 30% of eligible faculty via signed authorization cards. On Tuesday, the group turned those cards into the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board and filed a petition to hold an election.

They made the announcement during a press conference in Harrisburg with SEIU Local 668, which the Penn State faculty union is affiliated with. SEIU is a social service employees union that represents 20,000 workers in Pennsylvania.

“Penn State faculty filed earlier today for one of the largest union elections, if not the largest public sector union election in Pennsylvania history,” Steve Catanese, president of SEIU Local 668, said during the press conference. “We’re calling on Penn State to respect this process.”

Penn State is home to over 6,000 faculty members across all campuses. The group petitioned to represent all faculty at the University Park campus, in the University Libraries and at commonwealth campuses.

Several faculty members attended Tuesday’s press conference alongside state officials such as state Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-Allegheny County, and representatives from the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.

“Penn State deeply values the teaching, research, and service of our faculty, who play a critical role in fueling the success of our students and advancing our mission,” the university said in a written statement. “We will review the petition when we receive it from the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board.”

What’s driving the unionization effort at Penn State?

The news comes weeks after Penn State’s graduate students voted in favor of unionizing after a yearslong effort. Though PSFA’s emergence into the limelight occurred only this year, the campaign has been slowly gaining ground since the COVID-19 pandemic. The group first emerged under the name a Coalition for a Just University due to growing concern about the “inadequacy” of the university’s pandemic policies, according to James Howell.

Howell, an associate teaching professor in the Eberly College of Science, said over the years the group morphed into a unionization effort. He wasn’t as involved in the laying of the groundwork, but said he became more active when PSFA was fully-fledged and ready to go public.

“I have to say, it’s been such a positive experience for me to walk through all these different buildings and talk to faculty in so many different fields, in so many different academic [departments] and hear their concerns,” Howell said. “I’ve been really surprised and just completely delighted at all of the enthusiasm that we found for this effort.”

Penn State is the only state-related institution without a faculty union. Faculty at its counterparts Temple and Lincoln universities have long-established unions, and the University of Pittsburgh won their faculty union in the fall of 2021.

Howell said there’s been several times throughout his 20-year tenure where he’s thought situations would have been better if faculty had a union. The University Faculty Senate represents “all faculty at Penn State through the process of shared governance,” according to its website, but Howell says it’s not enough.

“The administration can ignore the Faculty Senate,” Howell said. “The Faculty Senate passed a resolution for a vaccine mandate, the administration didn’t even answer, didn’t even have a response.”

Howell sees a discrepancy in regard to who has a say in Penn State’s future. Faculty members often spend much, if not all, of their careers in the Penn State system, while administrators spend less time and as such aren’t “thinking about the long-term future of Penn State.”

“We as faculty ought to have a voice in determining Penn State’s future, and for very, very important issues like the pandemic policies and campus closures and the budget model, we haven’t had a voice at all,” Howell said. “It isn’t just that that’s unfair, it’s shortsighted.”

Sasha Coles, an assistant teaching professor of history, said in conversations with faculty it’s become clear many aren’t making a living wage. She said she recently received an email about increasing out-of-pocket costs for health insurance.

“I mean, a lot of our colleagues in English find themselves having to take other jobs while they’re also teaching to make ends meet,” Coles said. “I’ve heard of one faculty member who works DoorDash and has even delivered food to her current and former students.”

Job security, regular salary increases and the protection of academic freedom are among the main gains faculty hope to achieve through a union.

“I think that higher education is experiencing pressures from multiple directions, and the thing I worry about is delivering a rich and complex educational environment for our students,” Coles said. “In order to do that we as faculty need job stability, we need a living wage. We need to be able to advocate for ourselves and our students.”

Richard Sutton said he once presented to a class taught by a faculty member who did DoorDash to make ends meet and it showed.

Sutton, a fourth-year studying political science and labor and human development, said he’s optimistic that faculty will eventually win the majority vote.

“People can be conditioned and manipulated to accept financial hardship as the norm, and it doesn’t have to be that way,” Sutton said. “It shouldn’t be that way for a professor, which was originally this really prestigious job, but now pays next to nothing.”

Looming campus closures impact unionization effort

The announcement of the commonwealth campus closures following the 2026-27 academic year was a catalyst for many faculty members showing interest in signing authorization cards, according to Heather Page. Many asked if the union could save the campuses.

Page, a student engagement and outreach librarian at Penn State Fayette — one of the campuses set to close — said it was heartbreaking not being able to definitively say yes. Had a contract already been in place the university would have had to negotiate with the union, Page said, and they’d likely push for reassignments.

“(The university is) committed to reassigning tenured people or tenure track people to another campus,” Page said. “For non-tenured people, which is me and many of my friends, we do not get that opportunity to just be moved somewhere else and retain our positions. We have to apply to a new one.”

But Page is optimistic about the opportunities a union contract could present for Penn State faculty members across the board.

“We’re trying to form a union because we want to make Penn State the best it can be, particularly for our students, as a strong, stable faculty creates a very good learning environment,” Page said. “You don’t want to be taught by a starving adjunct who’s living out of their car. They might be an amazing teacher, but they’re not going to be at their best because they’re starving and living out of their car.”

What’s next in the unionization process?

Penn State Faculty Alliance wrote on its website that it hopes to have an election as soon as possible. Next, they’ll engage with administration and the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to determine who will be eligible to vote in a union election and how and when it will take place.

“We hope that PSU administrators will do the right thing and agree to a fair and speedy election to form our union,” the website states. “That said, we know that it is common for University administrators to attempt to slow this process down with unnecessary and costly stall tactics.”

This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 3:18 PM.