After Strike, HACC Faculty Union Gets Tentative Contract

After a two-day strike, threats of more striking and some 20 hours of negotiations this month, the faculty union at Harrisburg Area Community College reached a tentative agreement with the administration early Monday morning, PennLive.com reported. 

The tentative agreement comes more than three years after HACC faculty voted to unionize in April 2022 amid a growing organized labor movement across the national higher education sector.

Faculty at the two-year college system in central Pennsylvania have advocated for a contract that includes pay raises, more control over the curriculum and class sizes, and an expanded grievance process, among other things. But the college has pushed back against the union’s proposals, accusing faculty of “seeking managerial control” and claiming that its “viability as an institution [could] erode in as little as five years” if it accepted the union’s contract. 

The union and the college made little progress on negotiating a contract until more than 200 faculty went on strike earlier this month; the union agreed to pause the strike during subsequent contract negotiations. When the two parties failed to reach a tentative agreement after hours of negotiations last week, the union threatened to go back on strike Monday.

But negotiations continued over the weekend, and a tentative agreement was announced at 12:42 a.m. Monday, though union members still have to vote for its final approval. Details of the agreement were not yet available, but the union told local NBC affiliate WGAL that “it represents compromise by both sides and prioritizes stability and sustainability for our students.”