AMHERST — Gail Gunn has been part of a team that has brought giving to the University of Massachusetts to record-breaking levels, yet near the end of her career the longtime UMass employee is feeling betrayed by administrators.

She contends that the administration is trying to eliminate public service jobs like hers and force more than 100 people to instead work for the private nonprofit UMass Amherst Foundation, under the guise of protecting employee pensions.

“A decision like this is being made for no good reason, but only because they don’t want to play by state rules,” said Gunn, a senior applications designer at the university.

Joined by Brawny, her white German shepherd service dog, Gunn, who is blind, added that she fears she will also lose the pension she is entitled to.

“In a nutshell, this is a crazy situation where UMass is moving public service to private work for no good reason. It’s not going to save the taxpayers a buck,” Gunn said.

“To be blunt, are they screwing me at the end of my career? Absolutely,” Gunn said.

Gunn was among Advancement staff participating in Monday afternoon’s Save Our Staff rally and speak-out, organized by the Professional Staff Union and the University Staff Association outside the Whitmore Administration Building. About 100 people gathered, holding signs such as “UMass, UGreedy! and “People Over Profits,” and calling on Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy and Vice Chancellors Arwen Staros Duffy and William Brady to return to the negotiating table.

UMass contends that without the changes the participation by some in Massachusetts State Employee Retirement System (MSERS) and the optional retirement plan (ORP) is at risk.

That led UMass to develop a compliance plan designed to protect employees’ past and future retirement contributions and to help maintain their career paths, with the majority to become part of the UMass Amherst Foundation to continue the university’s mission of philanthropic outreach.

The university has also designated human resources staff to facilitate a process for Advancement employees who want to remain public employees.

Still, those spoke about the situation on Monday said that they are not comforted by what is happening.

Krista Navin, director of annual giving, said there has been much stress for herself and her colleagues.

“We’ve been living under months of uncertainty where we don’t know what will happen with our careers,” Navin said.

“I’m very proud to work at UMass Amherst,” said Jay Johnson, director of digital service for Advancement, observing that he came to work in public service rather than private industry in 2016, joining the Professional Staff Union. “We choose to do this work because we want to do public work.”

That work includes producing the UMass magazine, newsletters and website content, raising money through UMass Gives and making 300,000 alumni connections.

As a husband and father of two children in Northampton schools, Johnson said he depends on the job.

“Union affiliation and the benefits here are very important to my family,” Johnson said. “The union at UMass Amherst is why I applied for the position in the first place.”

Though a few years short of being vested in state pension yet, he has health insurance through Group Insurance Commission, but would lose his life insurance if his job is eliminated, and would no longer able to contribute to state pensions. He would also lose protections from being terminated, becoming, instead, an at-will employee.

Johnson said the privatization plan is wrong. “We must stand up to correct the course of the flagship,” he said.

UMass officials, though, say no positions are being eliminated, and that no one currently employed with Advancement will have to apply to be transferred to the UMass Amherst Foundation.

As an assistant director of library annual giving and donor relations, Kim Fill said UMass employees deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

“Because of the affiliation with fundraising, my position has been targeted,” Fill said.

She said she is not proud of how campus leadership is treating its employees. Fill is a UMass graduate, a donor and soon to be parent of a UMass student.

Those conveying their feelings were joined by two other prominent supporters of the unions, Max Page, a UMass professor of architecture who is also the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and Jeff Jones, president of the Western Massachusetts Area Labor Federation.

Page said despite the Fair Share Amendment adoption and millions of dollars to come into higher education, leaders at UMass are acting under principles of austerity, and one of the hallmarks of that is privatization efforts.

“You’re fighting back, and we’re going to win,” Page said.

Jones led a chant that “union busting is disgusting.”

“This is union busting, folks,” Jones said. “We have to put a stop to it. We have to fight back.”

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