Dear Colleagues,
The public communications of the administration continue to indicate that their plan moving forward is to make pre-emptive layoffs of workers over the summer in preparation for projected budget deficits next year. Career lines, and perhaps even entire programs, have been identified for likely cuts. Meanwhile, the UO is outsourcing labor to low-paid, limited duration roles.
We are extremely disappointed that the UO has chosen this “chop from the bottom” path without engaging in authentic deliberation with campus stakeholders like our labor union. Like many of you, we find it difficult to repeatedly be asked to absorb the impact of budgetary decisions year-after-year while our leaders appear to make no sacrifices themselves.
That’s why our union leaders, in collaboration with other campus labor leaders, went to the UO Board of Trustees on Tuesday to demand true financial transparency from the administration. Watch the Campus Labor Council deliver our joint report to the Board here.
United Academics has also passed a Resolution on Financial Transparency. We are asking for greater financial transparency and shared financial governance, including for leaders to empower representative bodies (like the Senate Budget Committee) to audit, review, and make recommendations about budgeting, purchasing, and investing funds.
Although UO’s leadership denies there is any problem with transparency, they have lobbied against legislative transparency efforts like the Sunshine Bill for University foundations, and have not been particularly prompt in responding to information requests from UA on financial matters. Moreover, they have not always shared their underlying assumptions when they have turned over data which makes it difficult to arrive at a shared understanding of UO’s actual financial position. We also have virtually no information about how the UO Foundation determines what amount of the $1.63 billion endowment is provided each year to support the UO’s core operations.
Democratic reform to improve shared financial governance will require a long-term campaign that all of us contribute to—from educating our campus community, to actually showing up and fighting for what we deserve. Much like with our contract action campaign, this is a goal we can only accomplish by pooling our skills and energy together. If you are interested in helping build this campaign, please come to the Comms & Action Team (CAT) meeting on Tuesday, June 24th from 12-1pm (UA office and zoom).
We also ask you to join us (and bring a colleague!) at President Scholz’s Town Hall on UO’s finances next Monday June 9th, from 3-4PM in the EMU Redwood Room. By turning out UA members to this event and engaging with President Scholz, we can show how serious we are about the goals outlined in our Financial Transparency Resolution and similar resolutions developed in parallel by SEIU, GTFF, and UOSW!
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We encourage you to RSVP and submit questions ahead of time here.
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Please arrive at least 15 min early so we can get seats together.
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Wear your UA shirt/gear to show our solidarity! If you need a UA shirt or hat, stop by the union hall!
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Afterwards, we’ll return to our union hall for an informal social and debrief over beverages/snacks.
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If you’re not able to come in person, you can watch the Town Hall on zoom and share your reactions in our members-only Slack.