Some faculty unions warming to pay freeze

[The Northerner]

To be sure, leaders of Pennsylvania's teachers unions aren't happy with Gov. Corbett's push to balance the budget by making deep cuts in state aid to education. But some are voicing a willingness to take up one of his proposals: a one-year wage freeze.

On Monday, the union representing faculty and coaches at Cheyney, Kutztown, West Chester, and 11 other state-run universities said its leadership had "agreed in principle" to negotiate a wage freeze, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties said the decision to seek to a one-year freeze for its 6,000 members came in response to Corbett's call, in his March 8 budget address, for public-school employees to help plug the state's $4 billion deficit by agreeing to freeze their own wages.

Last week, the 191,000-member Pennsylvania State Education Association did the same. Its president, James P. Testerman, urged locals representing K-12 public-school teachers across the state to "seriously consider" accepting a pay freeze next year.

But the feeling is not unanimous. On Monday, the head of the smaller of the state's two big teachers unions said the Republican governor was asking too much.

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