By Jon McGrath
There’s no sugar-coating it: These are scary times for our professions. The federal government has committed itself to disrupting, inappropriately influencing, or flat-out eliminating higher-education programs that don’t fit a specific political view.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. After all, an admitted strategy of the current presidential administration has been to “flood the zone” with unilateral actions spanning diverse yet overlapping policy areas—such as immigration, global trade, and education—so that civil society, nonprofits, and unions like ours find it difficult to respond at a sufficient pace.
But things aren’t hopeless: Marches, rallies, protests, and other actions are taking place all across this country—and the Professional Staff Union (PSU) is an active part of this movement. And we should be: Unions like PSU are channels through which we work together every day to defend our own interests. This is a fight we must have—and win.
In fact, it’s a fight in which we have long been actively engaged. As the preamble of our Amherst chapter bylaws puts it, “We, the professional staff and classified supervisors at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, are dedicated to supporting the dignity of the individual; the empowerment of workers, democracy, diversity; and the promotion of social justice.”
In this stressful moment, it’s more important than ever to stand up for our values and to articulate what true security and safety for our members would look like. Below are a few areas in which PSU has turned these values into public demands, which we are actively fighting for at the bargaining table with the UMass Amherst administration.
Protecting Employees and Students Who Identify As LGBTQIA+
As we know all too well, much of the political discourse in this country has been consumed by “social” issues, placing topics such as gender and sexual orientation into the spotlight. It’s easy to argue that the current presidential administration, which has shaped this national conversation, has taken a threatening approach to LGBTQIA+ community members and their families.
If this seems like a distant threat, it’s worth recalling that the vice chancellor for UMass Amherst’s Facilities and Campus Services recently ordered Transportation Services employees to remove a Pride flag that had been flying for two years and had been raised through an agreement with the previous campus administration. There were excuses for why this removal needed to happen, but to many of our members, it felt like weak-kneed self-censorship.
In February, PSU submitted a proposal* for ongoing negotiations, “Resisting Hate, Protecting the Community,” that would mandate UMass Amherst unions and the school’s administration to “share the goal of welcoming, supporting, and protecting employees and students who identify as LGBTQIA+. Through this proposal, UMass Amherst would:
- preserve and expand rights and resources for trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive community members (such as access to gender-affirming care, inclusive facilities, identity-related record changes, and participation in athletics);
- maintain full staffing for LGBTQIA+ support centers, such as the Stonewall Center at UMass Amherst and the Queer Student Center at UMass Boston;
- uphold anti-discrimination protections in line with Massachusetts law and Title IX standards;
- ensure access to educational resources and support groups;
- and issue public statements affirming solidarity with LGBTQIA+ individuals and a firm refusal to comply with policies that limit their rights.
Supporting Immigrant Members
Nowhere has this administration’s actions been more visible than through its crackdown on immigrants. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained and implemented expedited deportations of undocumented immigrants (at times to El Salvador’s CECOT prison), which have sparked massive protests in cities from Los Angeles to Worcester.
In the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, ICE sent him to CECOT against judges’ orders even though, at the time, he had not been charged with or convicted of a crime. Abrego Garcia is back in the United States following a questionable indictment that led to the resignation of a top federal prosecutor. Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident of the United States, was arrested by ICE for his involvement in protests over the war in Gaza. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Tufts University student with a legal F-1 visa, was arrested by masked, plainclothes agents from the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and removed in an unmarked car, apparently in response to an editorial she wrote that was sympathetic to the Gazan cause.
These activities have even made it onto our campus. On April 4, UMass Amherst employees received an email from Chancellor Javier Reyes explaining that several “international students [had] had their visas revoked and student statuses terminated by the federal government.” (According to the UMass administration, each of these revocations has since been rescinded.)
Whether or not you are personally an immigrant in this country, the one thing that protects us all from unfair governmental treatment is due process. PSU has been advocating for the rights of all immigrants with such actions as:
- denouncing the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, and calling on UMass Amherst’s leadership and our elected representatives to “protect all residents, regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, or immigration status” (reinforced in a March 20 email);
- inviting members to join our 10:1 Network, the PSU Communication Tree, which serves “to foster member-to-member communication across our entire union” and allows for the swift mobilizing in moments of need, including actions of solidarity with impacted immigrant campus members;
- and submitting a proposal* for ongoing negotiations, “Supporting Immigrant Members,” that would require the university to:
- provide visa sponsorship to employees and immediate relatives in need;
- establish an immigration legal services fund for PSU members and our families;
- and establish workplace protections for immigrant PSU members, including nondiscrimination protections and the safeguarding of a member’s employment in the event that federal actions result in the loss of valid work authorization.
Defending Trans, Disabled, and BIPOC Members
Even prior to this current presidential administration, growing evidence has confirmed that PSU members who identify as trans, disabled, and/or Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are more likely to be disciplined due to bias.
To ensure that such bias and inequities are minimized at UMass Amherst, PSU has submitted a proposal* for ongoing negotiations entitled “Addressing Bias in Discipline.” In this proposal, we advocate for:
- a reorientation away from punishment toward remedying harm;
- fair proportionality for any applied discipline;
- an informal, confidential resolution process that’s available to all community members as a voluntary alternative to traditional discipline and prioritizes healing and dialogue;
- and a Bias in Discipline Review Board—comprising union, student, and administrative appointees—to investigate and document the impact of bias in individual disciplinary proceedings.
Protecting All Members of Our Community
We feel that the statements, proposals, and other actions listed above are reasonable and in line with the welcoming reputation that UMass Amherst has built over the course of decades. The presidential administration may come after the school to muzzle that welcoming spirit, but we will be here to stand up, together, at the bargaining table and beyond it.
The PSU Chapter Board, in a recent PSU email to members entitled “Defense of People, Ideas, and Ethics,” wrote that “we are in the midst of an historic bargaining fight for fair pay, full staffing, and dignified treatment—for all members—none of which we can win by turning our backs on the fear and confusion that this presidential administration has brought to our campus.”
Through these actions, we are sending a clear message that the university must make a public stand to protect all members of our community. The UMass Amherst administration recently expressed a commitment to ensure that “people from every walk of life and every corner of the globe can pursue their academic and scholarly goals.” It’s up to each of us to keep pressure on the UMass Amherst administration, so that our professional goals are given the same consideration.
* This is a conceptual proposal; specific language changes to the relevant sections of the contract will be developed for any tentative agreements.
