Mediation Update for February 7, 2025
Your bargaining team met with administration for our second mediation session on Friday, February 7. The session began with a conversation with Jamie Moffitt, the University's Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer.
We appreciated having a chance to speak with her, not so much due to the information that the administration team conveyed in this meeting - the same concerns regarding payments to PERS and PEBB, state disinvestment, enrollment figures and other anxieties that they have expressed since before we ever unionized - but for the chance to convey to the CFO that faculty have never been more prepared to utilize our collective power in order to secure a fair contract.
We engaged in discussions surrounding our economic proposals with the administration's bargaining team following the meeting with Jamie Moffitt. The administration seemed shocked when they heard that the faculty are prepared to strike if the Scholz administration does not start making real investments in academic salaries. This Thursday, we will continue conversations with the administration team to ensure that we can come to an understanding of the potential costing behind either side's proposals.
We also worked through issues in Article 32: Leaves and Article 38: Criminal Background Checks and hope to have these finalized in our next session. Though progress has been slow throughout the year on our many non-economic provisions, we think we will be able to finish these discussions in the near future.
Our next session (and currently the only session on the calendar) with administration is February 13th. While we hope that our dialogue will be fruitful this Thursday, we need to continue speaking with our colleagues so that they sign their strike pledges. We have exceeded our expectations for the first week of the campaign, but there is still much work to do.
Thank you to everyone who has attended town halls, our general membership meeting, and other events, and to our colleagues who have been knocking on faculty doors and who have arranged meetings with their department. Collectively we have spoken to several hundred faculty members in the last few weeks and their message is clear - they will not accept effective pay cuts.
Strike School: Learn the Logistics of an Effective Strike
Ready to Strike, Ready to Win
Friday 2/14 - 12-1:30pm
Tuesday 2/18 - 5-6:30pm
Location: UA Office
What: Across the country, faculty unions like ours have held Strike Schools in order to prepare to take collective labor action—and that’s how they won! This session is based on the lessons learned from recent, victorious strikes and strike threats by the faculty union at Rutgers and by our own GEs in GTFF here at the UO.
Why: Strike School is designed to help us build the knowledge and confidence we need to win the contract we deserve. You will learn ways to help grow our solidarity leading up to a strike, the basic logistics of striking and picketing, strategies to maximize our impact, and other actions you can take NOW to turn our demands into victories. This training is open to all UA members, but if you have ever considered being on the front lines as a Picket Captain, this is your call to step up and learn what it takes to help lead!
We can win this fight by building our power together—join us at Strike School!