Bargaining Update for September 26, 2024

Your bargaining team met for the 15th session of negotiations with the administration on September 26th. Before we get into the details, we are deeply appreciative of the more than 200 people who attended either in person or over Zoom. We filled the room and had to use the overflow room as well. Your presence was felt by everyone at the table.

A Tentative Agreement on Unit-Level Policies!

The team is happy to report a tentative agreement on Article 4: Unit-Level Policies, where we strengthened the mandate that unit-level policies come from unit-level processes, rather than units being forced to follow top-down college- or school-wide policies. We are grateful to the administration team for the productive conversations on this issue.

Update on Salaries

As promised, we presented a counterproposal for Article 26: Salary after analyzing the data behind the administration’s total compensation calculations. While we do not agree with all the administration’s assumptions or conclusions, we did come to a similar conclusion that Oregon’s retirement plan offerings are indeed more generous than at comparator institutions. We therefore chose to reduce our overall ask to 8.5% raise pools to reflect that generosity. We reiterated the need for across-the-board, equity, and merit pools within that overall amount.

To summarize, here is where Article 26 currently stands on the numbers:

United Academics Current Ask
Year	2025	2026	2027
Across-the-board	8.5%	3.62%	3.4%
Internal equity	0%	2.44%	0%
External equity	0%	2.44%	0%
Merit	0%	0%	5.1%

 

Administration Current Offer
Year	2025	2026	2027
Across-the-board	3%	0%	0%
Internal equity	0%	0%	0%
External equity	0%	0%	0%
Merit	0%	3%	3%

We reiterated our ask to improve raises at major reviews by 2%, reminding the administration that units have taken advantage of the flexibility in the current language to “race to the bottom” on reviews and that these changes would reduce bargaining friction in the future.

Finally, we rejected the administration’s demand that faculty act as payroll supervisors each month. We don’t ask HR staff to check the formatting of our syllabi or bibliographies – faculty should be able to trust that HR and Payroll are correctly processing pay.

Along with the language of the article, we provided slides detailing our analysis, which you can find here.

Unfortunately, the administration chose not to engage with our proposal or presentation during the session. We remain hopeful that the administration will choose to have real conversations about faculty compensation this fall. More on this below.

Promotion Reviews

We returned both Article 19: Career Faculty Review and Promotion and Article 20: Tenure Review and Promotion to the administration. While we feel we are close on these articles, there are some important remaining details to hash out.

On Article 19, the most important remaining issue is credit for prior service. The administration claimed in a previous session that pro tem faculty who were reclassified or hired into Career positions were “almost always” given credit toward promotion for their pro tem service. We investigated and found many counterexamples, and so we reiterated our language which strengthens the prior service provisions.

On Article 20, one major sticking point is midterm review for pre-tenure faculty. The administration claims that they want to push more cases toward a full tenure review and therefore are proposing to eliminate one- or two-year contract extensions following negative midterm reviews. We share both the stated goal and the desire to simplify the midterm review process, but are concerned that the administration’s language would not accomplish that goal. We reasserted language that a terminal contract be given only when there is consensus at all levels of review.

Blathering about Bulletin Boards

Finally, we also presented Article 9: Union Rights, where again we are close. The remaining sticking point is, believe it or not, some language about bulletin boards. United Academics, like other organizations on campus, uses bulletin boards around campus to disseminate information to faculty. As new buildings and remodeled spaces often are designed without bulletin boards, we’ve been concerned that the administration is cutting off important channels of communication.

You might think that bulletin boards are a bit outdated. We agree! In previous iterations, we tried to work with the administration to adapt to modern workspace designs. Unfortunately, they rejected all our modernization proposals, and so we are continuing to insist on bulletin boards for the time being.

Wrapping up: Keep the momentum going!

While we are grateful to the administration for the progress we have made on many issues, it seems that the administration is not ready to have the kinds of conversations about salary that will lead to an agreement. For example, the administration discussed bulletin boards with us for over 20 minutes, but did not engage in any meaningful way about salaries.

This is not a recipe for a collaborative relationship that promotes a flourishing campus community. We have reiterated in many forums that we are prepared to have broad conversations about faculty compensation and that every piece of our proposal is up for discussion and modification. We understand that this is a difficult process and we are open to creative ideas and solutions for this unique situation. Unfortunately, it is becoming clearer that the administration is not prioritizing faculty compensation.

We will continue our work at the table, but we need your help. We are so grateful to everyone who attended last week’s session. The raucous applause in the room during our salary presentation buoyed the spirits of our team and gave us (and the administration) a strong indication that faculty support our proposals. We need to keep that momentum going throughout the term if we are going to win a fair contract.

The next session is October 17 from 12:30 to 3:30 PM in Chiles 125. Please attend and bring a friend!