No Movement from Admin

Your bargaining team met with the administration for the 17th session of negotiations on October 31st. Thank you to everyone who attended, whether in person or over Zoom! The next bargaining session is Wednesday, November 13th. More on that below.

The Scholz administration refused to move on salaries… or anything else.

The administration returned Article 26: Salaries to us. The headline numbers are unchanged: the administration is offering us a package that would permanently devalue our work, reduce our quality of life, and ultimately mean a pay cut (in real terms). The administration also rejected modest proposals in other articles on economic grounds, claiming that they needed every cent to negotiate with us over salaries.

This excuse is wearing thin: if the administration is keeping all their financial powder dry to make movement on salaries, where is that movement? The only movement we have seen in many months of bargaining is the recategorization of one year of raises from merit to across-the-board.

Good-faith movements from United Academics

Your bargaining team presented five articles to the administration, each of which contained movement toward an agreement in the name of good-faith bargaining. We even accepted the administration’s arguments about bulletin boards, because we understand that bulletin boards, like chalkboards and overhead projectors, are slowly going the way of the dodo.

Some sticking points remain, however.

First, we continue to fight for 0.2 FTE dedicated for service and professional development for full-time Career faculty. In the spring and summer, we were led to believe that the Office of the Provost (OtP) valued the contributions of Career faculty and would make these changes when reviewing unit-level workload policies. Instead, every unit-level proposal which included this time was rejected. United Academics will continue to assert the importance of this time to improve the work of Career faculty.

Second, we are insisting on minor changes to the grievance process to ensure that faculty are given the opportunity to understand and respond to the arguments made by administrators during the process. We consider this to be a fundamental matter of due process.

Third, we continue to believe that Pro Tem faculty who are reclassified or hired into Career positions should receive automatic credit for prior service. The administration says they agree with us in principle, but they want to reserve the right to determine whether their Pro Tem work was “comparable.” While this might sound reasonable, the Office of the Provost has proven themselves to be untrustworthy on these specific issues in the past, and we have no reason to believe them now.

Finally, we believe that our most vulnerable funding-contingent faculty deserve at least some notice in the unfortunate event of layoffs. We were told at the table that such a provision would be impossible—that the university could never afford to mandate such a notice because it might cost money. However, as one of our team members pointed out, the administration has found a way to manage this impossible situation when it is administrators themselves whose positions are funding-contingent.

Taking stock

At the beginning of this process, United Academics and the administration agreed to hold at least 20 bargaining sessions before calling for mediation from the state. As we near the end of those sessions, progress has substantially slowed.

From our perspective, the administration’s strategy is now clear: wait out the clock on these mandatory sessions and move negotiations behind closed doors so they don’t have to stare into the faces of the people whose lives and work they are devaluing with their absurd and insulting proposals. This matches the attitude the administration took with the GTFF and SEIU last year, and the way they are approaching negotiations with the UO Student Workers right now. This also matches how other public university administrators in Oregon are handling negotiations with their workforces.

Your bargaining team’s approach remains the same: we are focused on negotiating the best contract for faculty that we can. Given that faculty teaching and research form the backbone of this institution, we believe that treating faculty fairly is the best way to create the “flourishing community” our administrative leaders claim to support.

We have solicited both quantitative and qualitative feedback on the current proposals on the table from members to make sure our positions at the table are a direct reflection of the views of the membership. That feedback has been overwhelmingly consistent: the administration’s proposals do not come anywhere close to sufficient. Faculty are ready to fight for the real raises that UA has brought to the table.

Where we go from here

Unions are about collective action. The bargaining team’s ability to negotiate a good contract depends entirely on your willingness to stand up and fight for your own well-being and for the good of your colleagues. The administration needs to see that all of us, collectively, are ready to walk away from a bad deal. Here are some specific actions that every faculty member can do to help win a good contract.

• Talk to your colleagues about bargaining. We’ve heard that many faculty are still out of the loop about the administration’s laughable offers. Checking in with your friends and colleagues on campus is a great way to spread the word and make sure everyone knows about the stakes of these negotiations.
• Come to the SHORT pre-bargaining rally on Wednesday, November 13th at noon. We will be meeting at Johnson Hall to present our member sign-on letter to the administration.
• Come to the remaining bargaining sessions this fall. We have sessions on November 13th, November 21st, and December 5th, from 12:30 – 3:30 in Chiles 125. Bring your lunch, bring work and bring your colleagues! Showing engagement in person is the best way to demonstrate to the administration that you won’t accept a bad contract.

A closing word about strikes

The United Academics leadership team (including the bargaining team) sincerely hopes that we will be able to come to an agreement with the administration without going on strike. The bargaining team will consider all good-faith proposals made at any time. That said, we are hearing from members that we must prepare for such a possibility, especially given the way the administration has handled negotiations with other employee groups.

In response, UA leadership has put together an FAQ about how the process might go over the next couple of months. At last week’s General Membership Meeting, the largest in UA history, the members voted unanimously to establish a Strike Fund for the first time to financially support members who would be most impacted in the event of withheld pay due to a strike. This demonstrates the commitment and readiness of our membership to stand up for what we deserve.

We can’t say this enough: the quality of our contract will not be determined by the arguments of the folks on the bargaining team, but instead by your actions over the next few months. The examples of the GTFF and SEIU are illustrative: in both of those cases, employees had facts and logic on their side, but the administration did not make any substantial movement until employees made it clear with their actions that they were not satisfied with what was on the table.

We have no reason to believe that these negotiations will proceed any differently. The bargaining team is committed to providing two-way communication between faculty and administrators, but ultimately this contract depends on your actions.

In solidarity,
the United Academics Bargaining Team