Federation of State Cultural and Educational Professionals (FOSCEP) Local 2382

FOSCEP’s members are employed in the Pennsylvania state government Departments of Education, Corrections, Environmental Protection, Conservation and Natural Resources, Health, Human Services, Labor and Industry, Military and Veterans’ Affairs, State, and Transportation; as well as the Historical and Museum Commission and the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. ²

The president of FOSCEP is Julia Puza, an ESL/bilingual education advisor in the state Department of Education. ³

Advocacy

The Federation of State Cultural and Educational Professionals Local 2382 does little advocacy on its own, and instead generally participates in AFT Pennsylvania’s and the national AFT’s advocacy campaigns. ⁴

In 2021, FOSCEP approved and encouraged its members to take advantage of Pennsylvania state government policies that offered a total of six additional days of paid leave in return for submitting proof to the state that they had received a COVID-19 vaccination. ⁵

2008 Furlough Lawsuit

In 2008, the Federation of State Cultural and Educational Professionals Local 2382 was one of three unions to sue over a proposed furlough plan from then-Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell (D) that would have taken effect had the state legislature not passed a budget by the statutorily required deadline. Rendell had proposed dividing state workers into “critical” and “noncritical” employees, furloughing the non-critical workers and continuing to pay the critical workers out of unappropriated funds. ⁶

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ultimately ruled that state laws prohibiting the government from paying employees in the absence of legislative appropriations were overridden by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act’s requirement that the state abide by the terms of its collective bargaining agreements with FOSCEP and other unions, and ordered the state to continue paying their members. ⁷

Revocation of Tax-Exempt Status

The Federation of State Cultural and Educational Professionals Local 2382 had held a tax-exempt status as a labor union under section 501(c)(5) of the Internal Revenue Code, but the Internal Revenue Service revoked that exemption in May 2017 for failure to file an annual tax return for three consecutive years. ⁸