Dear Colleagues,
It is up to us to fight against proposed cuts and to defend public education at the UO by advocating for budgetary actions more aligned with UO’s public education and research mission.
Today, the Communications and Action Team (CAT) has a few quick priority actions we need YOU (and all your coworkers and allies) to take as soon as possible:
SIGN OUR PETITION TO UO LEADERS
SEND AN AUTO-FILLED EMAIL TO UO LEADERS
CALL OR EMAIL OREGON LEGISLATORS
We have also revamped strengthenuo.org as a homepage for all things UO finances, budget cuts, and layoffs. Please check out the site and share it with friends, colleagues, students, donors, and anyone else who may be willing to advocate on our behalf to UO leadership. You can also use this site to gather information for relevant op-eds you may wish to write. We will continue expanding the site and adding more information as we are able to compile it.
Finally, we have compiled all of our existing resources for member actions into a new toolkit: Fight Cuts, Defend Higher Education! (permanent link: tinyurl.com/UO-cuts-action-toolkit). We will continue expanding this kit.
If you have templates or other resources that could be added to the kit (or our website), you can share them via the #cat-contract-action-team slack channel or send them to info@uauoregon.org. To join Slack, fill out our form here: tinyurl.com/UAMembersSlack.
If you want to contribute your ideas and skills to our CAT campaign against layoffs — especially if you have existing skills in writing content, working with press, filming/editing videos, and/or web development — please come to our next CAT meeting on August 26 from 11am-12pm, in the UA office and over Zoom.
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OTHER REMINDERS RELATED TO LAYOFFS:
Please encourage any faculty member who receives a layoff notice to reach out to our union as soon as possible: info@uauoregon.org. We can review your letter for compliance with our CBA; we can file grievances for any contract violations; and we may be able to arbitrate some layoff terms. If you are not laid off but have been asked to take on additional work to cover layoffs, fill out this Workload Survey.
We have included more information on strengthenuo.org about layoff protections in our contract. You should also familiarize yourselves with these, as well as the specific policies of your unit (available on the Provost’s website).
Finally, we are seeking faculty willing to publicly share stories (anonymously or not) about their experiences being laid off, being asked to pick up extra work, negative impacts on your students/program, or other problematic changes due to cuts. If you want to share part or all of your story (for public uses, such as flyers, press, or social media), please email us at info@uauoregon.org or attend a CAT meeting.
Actions YOU Can Take to Fight Layoffs!
