HARRISBURG, Pa. — Update, Oct. 24: After nearly two years of negotiations, the faculty at Harrisburg Area Community College are still working without a contract and desperately fighting for stability.
In September, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor hired a neutral third party to create a contract compromising the demands of both sides.
This week the school board rejected the proposal for the second time with little explanation, according to union officials.
Union President Kathy Sicher believes these actions by the school are intended to discourage the newly formed union, but says the group won’t back down.
“We feel like they are stalling intentionally at the table to not get us a contract. We are going back to the table to try to negotiate a contract, hopefully using this report as the foundation and finding out the details about what’s wrong with the report and why they rejected it,” Sicher stated.
The union will meet with the board again in November to continue negotiations in the hopes of reaching a contract agreement.
While the union has not made a decision yet, Sicher says there have been discussions about the union striking if an agreement is not reached soon.
Previously: Faculty with Harrisburg Area Community College Education Association (Hawk Faculty Unite on Facebook) rallied on State Capitol steps Monday after the Harrisburg Area Community College Board of Trustees rejected a state-appointed third-party fact-finder’s report.
Union President, Kathy Sicher, says the report would’ve provided a modest wage increase to help keep up with the cost of living among other things.
“The faculty did not get their raises last year and we’re coming into a second year with no raises, and we’ve actually agreed to take the raise that they have already given to our non-unionized staff at HACC,” Sicher said.
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor employed the factfinder who delivered the report in September and was reviewed by union members and the college in October.
“Our union voted 96% to accept the fact-finder’s report as our first contract and the college has rejected it,” Sicher said.
In a statement to FOX43, the college rejected the report because “the recommendations provided by the fact finder do not support HACC’s student-centered mission,” citing potential tuition increases if the report was taken in its entirety.
But Sicher isn’t convinced and says the college has money it’s not using.
“They have $79 million in an unrestricted fund balance, the largest it has ever been and that’s on the backs of 12 years of very low or no raises to faculty,” Sicher said.
The statement goes on to say, “The work of the fact finder is valuable, and there is now an opportunity to use the recommendations to help us move toward finalizing a collective bargaining agreement. The college is committed to continuing to bargain in good faith with the faculty union.”
Chief Negotiator with HACCEA, Amy Withrow, says the union has compromised with the college since unionizing in 2022.
“I think the easiest solution would be that the board of trustees approves the fact-finder report, and we can get this behind us, and we can all get to a healthier HACC,” Withrow said.
The board of trustees will have October 16 through 19 to reconsider the reports’ findings and vote to pass or reject them.
If rejected, faculty are prepared to renegotiate but hope that does not happen.
The report is now publicly available online.