By Staff
Coaching Management, 13.11, November 2005, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm1311/bbstrike.htm
When Slippery Rock University opened its 2005 season with a perfect 4-0 weekend, the players and Head Coach Laurie Lokash had more reason than usual to celebrate. Just days earlier, they learned that a new contract agreement had been struck between coaches in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The deal ended the looming possibility of a coaches’ strike, which had threatened to bring sports in the NCAA Division II conference to a screeching halt.
Around 360 PSAC coaches—those who are not under faculty contracts at their schools—are members of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF), the only union in the country that represents college coaches. They had been working without a contract since their last one expired in 2004, and with unresolved issues on the table, in June 2005 they authorized APSCUF to call a work stoppage. The official strike date was never made public, but newspaper reports speculated that if a deal were not in place by late August, teams at the 14 PSAC schools would likely find themselves at least temporarily without coaches.
When a tentative agreement was announced on Aug. 23, Lokash says she was relieved that the long period of uncertainty was over. “We were told that the general membership would know 48 hours before a strike was called,” she says. “Knowing that we didn’t have to worry about that timeframe anymore allowed us to concentrate on our season. But honestly, I don’t think that we prepared our teams for this season any differently. How could we have?”
Most difficult of all, Lokash says, was coping with the possibility that her players would see their season interrupted. She kept an open approach in talking to her team about the situation, and was heartened to see the athletes respond with understanding and support.
“The first thing they said to me when we spoke about it was, ‘We’ve got your back,’” Lokash says. “They said, ‘We know that we’re only passing through here for four years, but this is your job. There are certain times when you’ve got to take care of yourself, because the rest of the time you’re taking care of us.’ They were going to be disappointed if they didn’t get to play, but they also knew that we wouldn’t do this to them intentionally.”
Of the labor issues that needed to be hammered out, pay increases topped the list. Under the new contract, coaches will receive a three-percent salary increase for 2005-06 and again for 2006-07, with the potential for an additional performance-based raise of up to 2.5 percent per year. Full- and part-time coaches with at least 10 consecutive years of experience also received a one-time cash payment of $50 for each year they have coached.
Other points of contention involved health insurance co-payments and tying contract renewals to performance evaluations—something coaches wanted in order to protect job security. The coaches did not secure a direct link between performance evaluations and contract renewals, but as part of the new agreement, a university president will have to provide written justification whenever a coach’s contract is not renewed.
While the threat of a strike was difficult, Lokash says most coaches in the PSAC strongly support the concept of unionization because they realize it gives them critical leverage in collective bargaining. Before coaches unionized under APSCUF many had very low salaries. The first contract they secured through the union, which took effect in 2002, set salary ranges for full-time head coaches ($30,000-$85,000) and assistant coaches ($25,000-$50,000), as well as minimum salaries for part-time coaches.
Coaches also felt they had little job security before unionizing. “When you’re not unionized, things can be very arbitrary,” Lokash explains. “We didn’t have any guaranteed vacation time or sick leave, there was no raise schedule, and if your university wanted to ask you to work 365 days a year, it could. There was really nothing to guarantee us benefits or job security.”