Faculty Strike Ends in Settlement at Pennsylvania’s State-Owned Colleges

Striking faculty members in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education will return to class no later than Monday after three days of picketing, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

The faculty union, the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, which has 5,500 members, said in a news release that it had made concessions on salaries and benefits in order to reach a tentative, three-year agreement. In exchange, the state system will drop more than 200 proposed changes in the collective-bargaining agreement.

On Wednesday the faculty union declared a strike, the first in the system’s 33-year history. Many of the union’s members heeded the call to walk off their jobs, a move that affected roughly 110,000 students in the 14-campus system.

Kenn Marshall, the state system’s spokesman, told the Post-Gazette that the agreement “contains raises and health-care savings.”

Faculty members had worked without a new contract for more than a year. Additional details about the deal will be announced later.

“We are relieved to have an agreement that preserves quality public higher education in Pennsylvania and allows our members to get back into the classroom, where they belong,” said Kenneth Mash, the union president, in the release.

Both Mr. Mash and the state system credited Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, with helping to end the strike. The walkout did not affect state-related institutions such as Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Lincoln and Temple Universities.