Voting begins in Penn State faculty union election. But eligibility questions remain
Ballots started going out earlier this week to Penn State faculty members eligible to vote in the union election — and some have already expressed concern over colleagues being wrongfully excluded from voting.
Last month Penn State and the Penn State Faculty Alliance announced the faculty unionization election would be held from April 1 until May 6 via mail-in ballot. Ballots were mailed to faculty members’ home addresses from the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board on April 1 and need to be returned to the Harrisburg office of the PLRB via mail by May 6.
After the list of eligible voters was released, some faculty members noticed their names weren’t on the list. During a faculty senate meeting on Tuesday, William Brandt, a professor in the Eberly College of Science, asked about it after realizing he and many people in his department were excluded.
“It seems like this exclusion is occurring for faculty who supervise postdoctoral researchers and similar, so could you please justify why many faculty have been excluded from the election order voting list?” Brandt asked. ”Apparently, this is due to some concern about important conflicts of interest. I’ve tried to get to the bottom of those, but the details are still murky, at least to me.
“Could you perhaps give some plausible, real world cases of conflicts of interest that are so important that they should block faculty from being able to vote in this important matter, especially for the case of, say, a faculty member who would be in the union, who supervises postdoctoral researchers, who would not be in the union? Where are those conflicts of interest coming from specifically?”
Penn State’s union website states a key factor used in determining who is an eligible voter is whether a faculty member meets the legal definition of a supervisor, which would include any faculty who supervises a full-time or part-time faculty member, a postdoc, a full-time tech service employee or a full-time staff member.
Provost Fotis Sotiropoulos encouraged him and others to request a ballot and vote, and referred the question to Kathy Bieschke, senior vice provost and interim dean of undergraduate education. Bieschke said the supervisor title distinguishes them from other faculty in the unit.
“They’re not included for good reason, for the conflicts of interest that you just mentioned,” Bieschke said, adding that it’s possible that someone supervising a union member may disagree with a directive they receive from an administrative position. But they still need to fulfill their institutional obligations.
The Penn State Faculty Alliance site states a “sizable group” of faculty was left off the voter list and that the definition of supervisor was “overly expansive.”
“We, as PSFA, did not and do not agree with this definition of a supervisor,” the site states. “Moreover, we don’t believe it has legal validity. For instance, it is not how Pitt, Temple, or the PASSHE schools define a supervisor, and there is no case law that supports their argument. The PLRB will have to rule on this issue after we win our vote, but we are committed to fighting to keep the faculty united at Penn State.”
Ballots will be counted beginning at 10 a.m. May 13, May 14, and May 15 if necessary by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board at 651 Boas St., Room E-100, Harrisburg.
If someone does not receive their ballot by 8:30 a.m. April 10, they should email the PLRB at katowens@pa.gov and request a ballot. The email should include their full name, mailing address, job title, reason for request and name of their employer, Pennsylvania State University. The last day to request a duplicate or challenged ballot is April 22.
