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University of Oregon Union Town Hall with Sarita Gupta Wednesday, April 6, 6:30-8 p.m. 156 Straub Hall This event will bring together the presidents of each of the University of Oregon’s major unions to discuss the challenges and possibilities facing a largely unionized university workplace, now and in the future, with Wayne Morse Chair Sarita Gupta. Participants will include Avinnash Tiwari, United Academics of the University of Oregon; Stephanie Prentiss, Service Employees International Union 503; and Mel Keller, Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation. This event is part of the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics 2021-23 theme, Making Work Work….

Friday, March 18 marked our final bargaining session of the term. Your UA team presented Articles 19 (NTTF Review and Promotion) and 26 (Salary), as well as a new article focused on the needs of caregivers (Article XX – Caregiving). The administration returned counterproposals on Articles 09 (Union Rights), 20 (Tenure Review and Promotion), and 21 (Appeal from the Denial of Tenure and Promotion). We were able to reach two tentative agreements (TAs) – on Article 33 (Sabbatical), which the administration offered a counter on last session, and on Article 09. This brings us to a total of five TAs…

The UA and administration bargaining teams returned to the virtual table on Friday, Feb. 11 for our second session of the term. Your bargaining team presented counter proposals on Articles 11 (Release Time), 15 (Academic Classification and Rank), 16 (Notices of Appointment), and 33 (Sabbatical). The administration team followed with counters on Articles 9 (Union Rights) and 12 (Facilities and Support). Our proposals The session began with our presentation on Articles 15 (Academic Classification and Rank) and 16 (Notices of Appointment), which touch on many issues discussed by the Career Equity workgroup last Fall. Mike Urbancic (UA VP for Non-Tenure-Track…

The UA and administration teams met for our first bargaining session of Winter term (and third since we resumed bargaining in Fall) on Friday, Jan. 28. The administration team began by presenting counterproposals on Articles 11 (Release Time), 15 (Academic Classification and Rank), 16 (Notices of Appointment), and 33 (Sabbatical). We presented counterproposals on Articles 12 (Facilities and Support), 20 (Tenure Review and Promotion), and 28 (Fringe Benefits), as well as a new proposal on Article 21 (Appeal from the Denial of Tenure or Promotion). Our proposed revisions to Articles 12 and 28 are fairly minimal, but important. We maintain…

Your bargaining team will return to the virtual table this Friday, January 28, from 11:30am to 1:30pm. Please Zoom in to lend your support! You won’t appear on screen in this webinar-style session, but we can see that you are logged in in solidarity (even if you’re using the time to catch up on other work) and your presence sends a strong message to the administration that you are invested in the process and paying attention to the deliberations. This session, we’ll present proposals on Articles 12 (Facilities and Services), 20 (Tenure Review and Promotion), 21 (Appeals from the Denial of Tenure or…

Colleagues, Below, you’ll find the Executive Council’s message to upper administration after reviewing their response.  If you are having difficulty with remote accommodations for your work, if you feel you are working in an unsafe environment, or, if your workload has significantly increased this term, please contact us so we can advocate for you as best as we can. Please remember Bargaining picks up again this coming week. Zoom in from wherever you’re at. The B-Team did their work. Now we do our work and show up.  In Solidarity, The EC of UAUO — Dear President Schill, Provost Phillips, Executive…

Dear Colleagues, Tuesday, January 18, members of UA’s executive council met with Executive Vice Provost Janet Woodruff-Borden and Vice President Mark Schmelz in order to discuss the following list of solutions garnered by our membership to address our working conditions during the ongoing pandemic. During our meeting Avinnash, Bill, Lisa, Lynn, Mike, and Nathan expressed what we’ve been hearing from you all: why we need changes to both our current working conditions and how we can make those changes collaboratively and collectively. As you’ll see from the list below, we are thinking about short-term ways to manage the current moment’s…

Hello UA Members, Thanks to the many of you who attended last night’s general membership meeting. We had an informative and vibrant discussion about the current state of our working and life conditions under current Covid-19 policies. We take the many different points to heart, and recognize the multiple layers of issues many of us face. We have also heeded the many comments that have been emailed to the UA office and EC members. While UA Executive Council members have actively met with and maintained communications with upper administrators since before the Fall quarter, we see that it is time…

Dear Colleagues, Thank you for the many responses to us and me regarding how you see this moment we’re in. I haven’t had the time to respond to all, but I’m grateful to each and every one of you who reached out. Without exception, you all came from a place of wanting to do right by our students while balancing the health and safety of being in-person, our obligations as employees of the university, and what this moment means for our educational mission. So I offer a few key points garnered from those messages, for us all to consider from a…

Colleagues, Here’s what we know: Accommodations for faculty (health status, caregiving needs) remain the same as last term. The Academic Council meets today to potentially update classroom policies; we know that faculty can no longer remove masks under the public speaker exemption. Booster mandate details are forthcoming. There are conversations about our testing capabilities. Members of your Executive Council expressed your concerns about reopening to our bosses and we continue to do so. We are waiting to hear about the recommendations from the Academic Council and other updates from central administration, which should be forthcoming by week’s end if not…