NEW – State universities’ faculty union offers pay freeze

The union representing 6,000 faculty members and coaches at Pennsylvania’s state-owned universities - including IUP - is offering to negotiate a one-year salary freeze.

Today’s offer by the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculty came just days after the state’s largest public-school teachers’ union urged its members to consider the one-year pay freeze Gov. Tom Corbett suggested in his March 8 budget address.

Steve Hicks, the president of the faculty union, says faculty representatives of the 14 universities that make up the State System of Higher Education unanimously approved the motion on Sunday.

He says the union wants to demonstrate that it’s doing its part to help state government solve its budget crisis and that he hopes the Legislature will erase the 50 percent cut Corbett has proposed for the system.