This past summer, PSU Grievance Officer Lori Peterson wrote to members about a troubling trend in employee discipline at UMass. Peterson enlisted the help of our PSU data team to analyze the situation. They found, relative to their white counterparts, BIPOC PSU members were more likely to report being bullied or harassed by management during the grievance process, and more likely to leave UMass—whether voluntarily or by being fired.
“If this data has a story to tell,” Peterson wrote, it’s that BIPOC staff “are more likely to be overmanaged, experience bullying, be terminated from employment, or simply choose to leave.”
Obviously, this bias is campus-wide and is not limited to PSU members (similar bias impacts workplaces nationwide, too). Furthermore, we know that BIPOC members aren’t the only minority members suffering discrimination. In response, advocates from around campus, including representatives from multiple unions as well as students, gathered to design a better, fair disciplinary system in the form of a bargaining proposal.
The resulting proposal, which is hitting bargaining tables throughout UMass, proposes a marked shift in employee discipline on campus. It has the potential to transform our too-frequently punitive environment into one that fosters restorative change—change that’s long overdue. In testimony given at the PSU bargaining table on December 16, BIPOC members painted a damning picture of what it’s like to work at UMass.
One member said:
I can point to a meeting in my PSU position where I was the only black person in the room, and being thrown out of the meeting for being “aggressive and disrespectful,” and getting a flood of apologies from my white coworkers in the room because I was not being either…
I’ve been heartened to see the hiring of black people to staff and faculty positions—a chance for optimism. If the only goal was hiring black people and people of color, it’s making great progress. But I’ve also been gutted as I watch those same people disproportionately punished and pushed out of the university, either through firing them or making them so miserable they leave on their own.
UMass might have learned how to hire from a diverse candidate pool, but it has yet to learn how to protect and retain that pool. Every time I see or hear about another person of color being pushed out, I ask two questions: 1) how long will I last here, and 2) if nothing changes, how long do I want to last here?
Another testified:
I have dedicated many years of my working life to UMass as a professional staff member and have worked with many wonderful staff, students, managers, directors, and classified workers with diverse backgrounds and identities. Many staff, managers, and supervisors have thanked me for my helpful work. I have been part of the UMass community for a long time. My kids graduated from UMass, so I thought giving my all to UMass would be the right thing to do through thick and thin.
Currently I am experiencing extreme duress due to the perpetual harassment and disciplinary bias that I am put under by directors and supervisors in my work area…
They are now aggressively trying to fire me and have put me under a microscope with disciplinary actions and performance improvement plans. I have informed my union about this, of course. An example in point: I have been interrupted rudely in a harassing and disrespectful manner by one of these directors, who openly devalued and criticized me in front of my entire team. The same directors and supervisor punished me recently with a low PMP score, stripping me of my deserved COLA raise in a high inflationary environment… I could not buy groceries that week…
A third member said:
As the only professional of color in my work area, it is difficult to advocate for fairness without making people uncomfortable. Talking about existing discrimination practices leaves everyone angry or embarrassed, and places the professional of color in an impossible position: complain and you take the risk of punishment (“Oh you are just using the ‘race card’”); don’t complain and you will be subject to abuse.
Today, I find my work meaningful and exciting and care deeply for what I do and, if I may say, I know I do it really well. I also know that if I want to stay at my job, I have to work significantly harder than others at my level and that if I raise any questions of equity and transparency, I will face punishment.
Full details of the proposal can be found here, but this is the gist: PSU has proposed the formation of a Bias in Discipline Review Board, which will include representatives from across campus. These representatives, who will include members from five campus unions, students, and administrators, will be tasked with evaluating claims of bias in discipline. Moreover, the new proposal also prescribes the establishment of an informal conflict-resolution process, which pauses disciplinary action and instead sets in motion a process focusing on restorative resolution.
This multi-union bargaining proposal represents a potential for a new future at UMass—one where discipline is uncoupled from any bias against the rich diversity of our staff, students, and faculty.
Unfortunately, management has suggested that UMass go in the exact opposite direction. They recently presented a proposal that would make PSU staff unable to grieve discriminatory behavior. Functionally, management wants to make any anti-discrimination language in our contract unenforceable.
Obviously, this is an unacceptable proposal and, in the coming weeks, we will bargain with management and fight for the contract we all deserve.
Be sure to sign up to be a Silent Bargaining Representative and demonstrate with your presence that we won’t accept discriminatory behavior on our campus!
