PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Union leaders, students, and elected officials rallied Thursday in support of the faculty union at Community College of Philadelphia, which has threatened to strike without a new contract.
Members of the Faculty and Staff Federation at CCP chanted outside City Hall, days after the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board appointed a fact-finder to recommend a middle ground in the yearlong contract stalemate.
The College's contract with three bargaining units of AFT Local 2026 representing full and part-time faculty and support staff expired last August.
The union is seeking a 30-percent pay raise over four years, the College is offering 13 percent over three. The Federation is also seeking smaller class sizes and free SEPTA passes for students and faculty.
"Your demands are reasonable, overdue, and ones that the College can afford," said State Senator Nikil Saval.
Union leaders blasted the College's request for a third-party fact-finder.
"This is just a last-minute Hail Mary attempt to delay our contract bargaining, and to try to not have to deal with the critical issues we've been talking about for more than a year," union co-president Junior Brainard told KYW Newsradio.
Shannon Rooney, CCP's vice president of Enrollment Management and Strategic Communications, says a fact-finder would take up to 40 days to produce non-binding recommendations to both sides.
"We believed that by appointing a neutral third party, it was our best opportunity to save our students from the harm that would come from a Federation strike, especially this close to graduation," Rooney told KYW Newsradio. "It is our belief that at this point, now that a fact-finder has been appointed, a federation strike would be unlawful."
Brainard contends the College missed a deadline to ask for fact-finding, so he believes any strike would be lawful.
"We do not believe that the PLRB has the authority to appoint a fact-finder because the College missed a mandatory filing deadline," he said.
The union has not set a strike date, and contract negotiations are continuing.