‘Your vote is crucial.’ Penn State faculty can vote in union election starting next month
An election date has been set for the more than 5,000 Penn State faculty to vote if they want to be represented by a union.
The voting, which will take place via a mail-in ballot, will begin next month. Ballots will be mailed to faculty home addresses from the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board on April 1 and must be returned by mail by May 6, the Penn State Faculty Alliance announced on its website Thursday. All faculty at the University Park campus, University Libraries and commonwealth campuses are eligible to vote. It does not include the College of Medicine and the Applied Research Laboratory.
Ballots will be counted beginning at 10 a.m. May 13. The site outlines what to do if a faculty member does not receive their ballot and more at pennstatefacultyalliance.org/news/2026/03/19/our-faculty-union-election-process.
“It’s time to make sure our voices are heard. We’re building momentum, and your vote is crucial. Make sure your ballot arrives and is counted. This election will decide whether faculty across all Commonwealth Campuses and University Park, including tenured and non-tenure line, will form a strong union and a meaningful voice in decisions at Penn State affecting pay, job security, working conditions, and our students’ success,” the website states. “It is we, Penn State faculty, who will decide to form our union through a secret ballot election.”
The PSFA, which is affiliated with SEIU Local 668, a social service employees union that represents 20,000 workers in Pennsylvania, filed for an election in December after receiving the support of more than 30% of eligible faculty via signed authorization cards. It will be 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 December press conference.
Faculty members in support of the union have said a union would give them a voice in Penn State’s decision-making process.
Last month, more than 100 Pennsylvania state legislators banded together to urge the university administration to “exercise neutrality toward faculty unionization,” including Centre County’s two Democrat representatives, Paul Takac and Scott Conklin. SEIU also alleged that Penn State has “increased its anti-union messaging, designed to divide and confuse faculty.”
Earlier this week, SEIU said the university announced “anti-union meetings” for each college, beginning next week, and the invites include a link to the university’s “anti-union” website.
“Faculty are currently receiving invitations to these meetings along with a link to the university’s anti-union website. On Penn State’s anti-union website, the university disingenuously implies that unionization would risk Penn State’s research capabilities, its ability to maintain grant-funded work, and the privacy and autonomy of faculty,” the release states, which they said is against a commitment she made to the State General Assembly.
During a Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, a representative asked Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi if she would commit to not using public or university funds/resources to discourage people from exercising their right to join a union, and she said yes. But the college-by-college meetings are a reversal of that, the release states.
“Penn State’s Administration is trying to drive a wedge between faculty members. We are coming together to form a faculty union to improve conditions at Penn State. We are organizing to achieve more — to preserve high-quality education, to support research and discovery,” Andrea Adolph, faculty organizer and associate professor of English at Penn State New Kensington, said in the release.
The announcement that the faculty were starting the process of forming a union came in February 2025, the same week that the university announced it was exploring closing several of its commonwealth campuses. Other unionization efforts have ramped up across the university, including graduate students overwhelmingly voting in favor of a union last semester. Teamsters Local 8, a labor union representing technical service workers at every Penn State campus, is also seeking to significantly expand its membership by organizing some university workers who currently fall outside of its scope.
