By The Star Staff
The Puerto Rican Association of University Professors (APPU by its Spanish initials) took 97 percent of the vote in an election held last week to become the union representing faculty at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR).
“After 63 years of fighting for the recognition of our right to organize collectively, today the UPR teachers’ union is born,” said APPU President María del Mar Rosa Rodríguez, a professor at the UPR Cayey Campus, in a written statement.
Rosa Rodríguez emphasized the importance of the milestone and thanked the professors for exercising their right to vote and supporting the APPU.
“It is thanks to all that committed faculty that today we can organize collectively and work for the university toward a future that we deserve, that students deserve and that the country deserves,” she said.
Rosa Rodríguez stressed that the election marks only the beginning of the relationship between the newly formed union and the UPR.
“Now we will begin to work on the draft of that first UPR teachers’ collective [bargaining] agreement and then sit down to negotiate,” she said. “We will do it in a participatory and inclusive way and we have all the know-how for the development of the agreement.”
A celebration of the union victory has been scheduled for Friday, Dec. 8, with additional details to be made available on the APPU website.