What is UAP?
United Academics of Philadelphia, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 9608 is a metro-wide union that seeks to unify and support the over 15,000 professional and non-professional staff, and adjunct and non-tenure-track faculty currently working in Philadelphia-area colleges and universities. As a vital but often underrepresented element of higher education, we believe that together we can accomplish what we cannot achieve as individuals.
To ensure respect, security, fair pay and benefits from our institutions of employment, UAP is advocating for the unionization of all staff and contingent faculty at Philadelphia-area institutions of higher education. As colleagues, we will share resources, help each other organize, and create avenues for professional development, and advancement in the field of higher education. UAP will work to establish transparency at local institutions of higher education and focus on creating and implementing solutions to problems that affect students, professors, and staff across higher education institutions in Philadelphia.
The AFT now represents over 300,000 higher education members in all types of institutions, from small community colleges to world-class research universities, across the country. As an AFT affiliate, UAP has the resources to evolve with industry trends in the region and nationwide as means of strengthening the careers of our members.
TOGETHER WE CAN ACCOMPLISH WHAT WE CANNOT ACHIEVE AS INDIVIDUALS
Our structure & leadership
UAP is an AFT Local with a unique, democratic structure.
We are an “umbrella local”, meaning we seek to support and represent workers at multiple places of employment. We support contingent faculty and staff to organize at any Philadelphia -region college or university, and we’ll continue to grow as we support new groups of workers to form bargaining units at their schools.
Overseeing all of this is an elected Executive Board made up entirely of working higher ed faculty & staff, supported by member-organizers and staff organizers. Contact us here!
UAP’s History
In 2013, United Academics of Philadelphia was launched as an ambitious and innovative experiment that sought to address the corporatization of higher education by organizing faculty based on geography and the logic of the academic job market. UAP emerged as a combative force - an organization that would serve both to improve working conditions at individual universities in the Philadelphia metro-region, and provide resources and community for faculty and staff throughout the region.
Since our founding, we have supported adjunct faculty to organize at Temple University with TAUP, and the Faculty & Staff Federation of the Community College of Philadelphia as they leveraged the power of their workers to win contracts. We won our first bargaining unit in 2017, for adjunct faculty at Arcadia University, and in 2018 successfully negotiated a contract with yearly increases for every adjunct, improved access to healthcare, and more meaningful job security. In May of 2019, our members ratified our constitution, and we became a chartered Local of American Federation of Teachers. In September 2020, UArts Faculty, both part-time and full-time, won their bargaining unit and are now negotiating their first union contract with UAP. In May of 2022, UArts Staff, both full-time and part-time, won their bargaining unit and are also now negotiating their first union contract with UAP. In December of 2022, Arcadia Adjuncts ratified their second union contract!
Throughout all of these campaigns, we’ve also continued to build our community and provide support for non-bargaining members across the city who are teaching at universities where UAP does not (yet) have a formal presence, by leading Student Debt Clinics & Unemployment Workshops, hosting networking barbeques & happy hours, and providing trainings on how to organize your colleagues.
