The Point: PSU Demands Fair Negotiations From Admin

11/6/2025

This week’s edition was prepared by The Point committee.  As always, The Point represents the views of the author(s) and is not the official position of the FSU.

The below letter was written by members of the Contract Action Team of UMass Boston’s Professional Staff Union (PSU) and delivered to the Chancellor’s office last Thursday.  Incredibly, the PSU has been bargaining for nearly a year and half, including a recent session that lasted over twelve hours.  As the FSU knows all too well from its last round of bargaining, the principal obstacle to getting a decent contract is a management team that does not bargain fairly or professionally.   This is why the PSU is now requesting the intervention of the Chancellor – to ensure that the staff who make UMB function are treated fairly.    Read the below and be on the lookout for more ways to support our union siblings as they fight for the contract they deserve.

October 30, 2025

Chancellor, It’s Time to STAND UP FOR YOUR WORKERS!

Dear Chancellor Suárez-Orozco, 

For the last 17 months, your PSU employees have been bargaining in good faith with UMass management to reach a fair successor contract. Management’s team, unfortunately, has stalled the process and is now forcing us into impasse mediation through the Department of Labor Relations. Your bargaining team has refused to address the lack of living wages and opportunities for advancement within our membership. 

Management is also proposing take-backs that our members cannot accept, including the weaponization of Performance Improvement Plans so they can be used to terminate any member at any point without just cause; and distributing the January 2027 COLA solely as merit pay, which deprives members of the small increases Governor Healy intended them to receive. Our members on both campuses are very angry about these proposals, and about management’s call for impasse. As a consequence, our fellow PSU members on the Amherst campus have already announced an upcoming membership Vote of No Confidence in their Chancellor.  

As the leader of this campus, you have a responsibility and the power to help us win a fair contract that treats all PSU members with dignity and respect. We’re calling on you to stand up for the workers who make UMass Boston run every day: academic advisors, tutors and other student-facing staff; admissions, financial aid and grant management staff; nurses, construction project managers, researchers, and more.

We are asking you to demand that management’s team negotiate fairly with us. Compromises are part of the bargaining process, and, while PSU has made many at the table, management has yet to do so. Show your staff members that this university values its workers as much as its reputation. 

Sincerely, 

Michelle Browning and Susan Patalano, Co-Chairs

The Professional Staff Union Contract Action Team