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Bargaining a New Contract. What you need to know

Dear Colleagues and Comrades,As you may know, your faculty union, United Academics, is preparing to bargain toward our new collective bargaining agreement. Our first day of regular table sessions will be Thursday, January 9, from 12-3 in EMU Crater Lake North. Future sessions will be Thursdays 12-3 as well, so mark your calendars.In preparation for those sessions next term, your bargaining team is meeting with the administration’s team to discuss the ground rules for how bargaining will go.  In general, bargaining follows a set pattern, much of which is legally enforced. Some of the basics are below to get you started. If you…


Faculty and Students should come before Administrative Flexibility

Dear Colleagues,  During recent remarks to the University Senate, President Mike Schill alerted the campus to yet another potential budget crisis. He identified four reasons for his concern about budget “fragility:” the ongoing difficulties with PERS funding, the decrease in international students, low reserves, and the loss of “flexibility” due to faculty unionization.  We were surprised to have President Schill cite United Academics as a cause of budget fragility. In the summer of 2015, UO President Michael Schill and then-UA President Michael Dreiling negotiated a two-year salary extension to the faculty contract, with raises of 2.0% and 2.125%. We agreed…


UA’s First Bargaining Session

Our first session will be on January 9, 2020. We will be introducing most of our economic bargaining planks at that session. These include our salary/raise proposals, our child care proposal, and more. We’re hoping for a big turnout on day one, so put January 9, 12-3 PM on your calendar. You are welcome to drop in for a few minutes or stay the whole time! Please stop by the UA Office for fliers to add to your building’s bulletin boards or you can download a PDF here.Download


National Day of Action in Defense of Grad Rights

On November 14th graduate workers and their allies in higher education, the labor movement, and their communities will gather in Chicago, Boston, and Washington D.C. to protest the National Labor Relations Board’s attack on their rights. Ahead of this day of action we are aiming to collect 3000 comments to the NLRB.  Encourage friends and colleagues to submit comments on this page.


AFT-Oregon 2020 Scholarships and Awards are open for applications.

The AFT-Oregon 2020 Scholarship and Awards are open for applications. The deadline for the applications is January 31, 2020. An overview of the various scholarships and awards can be found here. Applications and additional details can be found on the website: http://or.aft.org/


Faculty Responsibility during a GE Strike

Dear Colleagues, As you know, the rumblings of an impending GE strike are growing louder, and questions have been raised about the expectations and obligations for faculty should that happen. Before any decisions are made about the University’s “Academic Continuity Plan,” I would like to share some thoughts to inform our discussions. To start, let me underline some of the information we shared with you in an August 27 e-mail. Some administrators incorrectly assume that faculty will cover for striking GEs. This is not necessarily so. Our collective bargaining agreement (CBA) requires faculty to “consult” about how work performed by a…


It’s Not About the Massages

The UO Administration has been spreading the rumor around campus that the GTFF is about to go out on strike because they love their free massages. This is bullshit.Before I became UAUO’s Executive Director in 2014, I spent 10 years working for the GTFF. So I know their contract, their health insurance program, and what is important to graduate employees on our campus.I hope you won’t mind a little history. In roughly 1999, the members of the GTFF fought to have a real, employment-based health insurance plan. They were able to get the administration to agree to pay for a…


How to Create Effective and Accessible PowerPoint Presentations

An ally of United Academics has designed a PowerPoint template and instructions for creating effective, accessible presentations. These slides have a small union “bug” on the footer which indicate that the presentation was made by union—in particular United Academics—labor.


UA President’s Remarks at New Faculty Orientation

When I arrived at the University of Oregon in 2009 I didn’t know what a Provost was. I had never been in a departmental meeting. I didn’t know that service was part of the job, or even what service entailed. I didn’t understand the concept of shared governance, or why a university has or needs a Senate.


Down to the Wire: Let Legislators know what we need!

On May 15th, Oregonians received some good news in regard to our financial outlook. Short version: the State has roughly 770 million dollars more than they expected for the biennium budget (despite a 1.4 billion kicker, but that’s another story). However, much of that will be put into reserves for the predicted economic downturn heading our way. We need to contact legislators in order to make sure we can get the Public University Support Fund (PUSF) funded at 120 million. That would mean students would see a less-than-5% increase to their in-state tuition. Of course, we should still be asking…