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HACC faculty prepare for union vote

The administration opposes the union drive.

  • Julia Agos/WITF
Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC)

 Jeremy Long

Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC)

(Harrisburg) – Faculty at a midstate community college are slated to vote on whether to form a union in the coming months.

Harrisburg Area Community College is the state’s largest community college. It’s also the only one without a faculty union.

Amy Withrow, an English professor at HACC, said the school has traditionally maintained a shared governance model. That means faculty, staff and administration all have a voice in making decisions.

But in recent years, she said the relationship has broken down.

“Faculty in particular, but I think it goes across other constituency groups too, feel that shared governance model was not working – that concerns, feedback, some issues are not being really heard,” she said.

She cited frequent staff reorganizations and pay and benefit concerns.

“Currently, we are spending far too much time talking about these organizational shifts, which are really operational. And we want to address that in union contracts so we can return our time, focus and energy into our classrooms and our students,” Withrow said.

Jeremy Long

Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC)

The administration opposes the union drive.

“We believe that our community has evolved and grown through the input and collaboration of all members of the College community without the need for outside intervention, as evidenced in numerous examples,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

The statement pointed to adjunct pay and lab pay but did not provide details of the examples it cited.

Full-time and adjunct professors from Harrisburg, Lancaster, Lebanon, Gettysburg and York campuses would be included in the bargaining unit.

Voting among HACC faculty is slated to run from Feb. 24 through April 7.

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