As some of you may already know all schools in the pasche system are currently on strike and have been since Wednesday. That means that all the students that attend these fourteen Pennsylvania state schools have not been attending classes since Tuesday.
Why is this happening? Well to put it simply the state has not updated the Professors contracts in over a year and a half. This means for the last 480 days the professors employed at these state institutions have been without a working contract. Teachers have been pressing the state since the beginning of this semester to renew their contract with the pay and benefits that they are entitled to. The state was incredibly slow to make moves low balling their offers, and treating their cause as if it was a joke. With no other option the Professors and ASPCUF (Association of Pennsylvania State College & University Faculties) began threatening a strike.
The states gimmicky offers that mocks the education and qualifications that these professors spent years working to earn continued up until early Wednesday morning. This is when the State made their final offer, one that still did not provide the professors with the pay and benefits they deserved. Leaving ASPCUF with no other option than to strike.
What’s worse is that in the states previous offers, they wanted to hire more temporary teachers and make most of the calsses the universities were offering online only. This would decrease the value of the education that students are earning at these institutuions across the state, but the costs would be kept the same time.
Since their last offer on Tuesday evening the state has yet to start renegotiating. They are willingly accepting that thousands of students are going without the education that we are all paying for. The state has been continuously demonstrating they only have their best interests in mind, not the professors, and certainly not the students.
Frustrated? Annoyed? Upset? You should be. We all should be infuriated at the actions, or should I say the lack there of, that have been taken over this past week. Our education is not a game and our hard working professors did not go through years of college to be treated like this.
Thankfully at the conclusion of the third day of the strike, Friday evening, both parties were able to reach a conclusion. Finally contracting our teachers, thus ending the statewide strike.