EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Last week the administration notified the more than 200 bargaining unit members who will be getting equity raises. Your union won the funding for equity raises in previous negotiations with administration and we are proposing another equity raise pool in our new contract.
- During the March 15th bargaining session, we passed proposals on Compensation and Benefits and a letter of agreement on Support for Caregivers. Because OSU faculty salaries are not competitive with peer institutions and have eroded due to inflation, we are proposing substantial increases. More than 70 faculty attended the session, sending a clear message to the administration that these issues are key priority for faculty.
UPCOMING SESSIONS
Use the links below to add these to your calendar.
- Thur. March 21: 10am-2pm (LaSells Stewart Center)
- Mon. March 25: 1-4pm (LaSells Stewart Center)
- Wed. April 3 9am-12pm (LaSells Stewart Center)
- Thurs April 11 9am-2pm (LaSells Stewart Center)
- Wed April 17 9am-12pm (LaSells Stewart Center)
EQUITY RAISES
We are excited to share that last week over 200 academic faculty members received equity raises. The pool of money used for these increases was a product of our negotiations during a salary reopener in 2021 where we secured a historic agreement with the administration to devote significant resources (an amount equivalent to 0.5% of total bargaining unit salary) to begin addressing this issue. It is exciting to finally see those resources getting to faculty.
During the 2021 negotiations and subsequent meetings with the Administration about their plan to distribute the equity pool, we mutually agreed that this was merely a first step in confronting salary equity issues at OSU. Faculty have been calling for salary equity for a long time, and our members consistently raise the issue. As such, we will continue to push for additional resources for equity-based salary adjustments in our current contract negotiations.
MARCH 15th BARGAINING SESSION
Your team kicked off the session with an analysis of the financial state of OSU and our faculty. High inflation in the last 4 years has outpaced our salary increases and OSU faculty pay is last among 33 peer institutions after adjusting for local cost of living! A recent financial analysis by the AAUP found that OSU is in “a strong financial position” and “is a financially healthy institution” that has chosen in recent years to invest in higher salaries for upper administration (up 23% from 2018–19 to 2022–23) but not faculty salaries (up only 3% in that same period). We agree wholeheartedly with the AAUP’s conclusion that it is time for OSU to invest in our faculty, who are central to performing its mission!
To address faculty salaries we’ve proposed several different raises that would work in combination with one another. Some highlights from our Compensation proposal include:
- An $8,000 increase to each faculty member’s annual salary rate to address the impact of inflation and to bring OSU closer to its peers, effective in July 2024 for 12-month appointments and September 2024 for 9-month appointments. This dollar-amount increase ensures that faculty with lower salaries will get proportionally larger increases to cope with the high cost of living in Corvallis and other parts of Oregon, while still providing a substantial increase for all faculty.
- A 3.5% increase each year for each faculty member to keep pace with future inflation.
- 10.5% increases in the minimum salaries in academic year 2024–2025 and 3.5% increases in future years to address inflation.
- A merit pool of 1.5% of faculty salary each year to reward excellence in job performance. (This is in addition to 10% increases for promotion.)
- An equity pool of 0.5% of faculty salary in academic year 2025–2026 to continue to address salary inequities.
- Increasing Sea Pay to $300 a day and allowing PIs to increase pay more than the minimum daily rate at their discretion.
- New access to promotion-style increases for faculty with excellent performance who have reached the highest rank in their classification.
We next passed a proposal on Benefits. This proposal:
- Adds access for retirees to faculty rates for university programs, event tickets, and the recreation center permanently and continued access to their university email account and OSU Library resources for one year.
- Adds a process that enables units to award emeritus distinction to non-tenure-track faculty.
- Clarifies eligibility for benefits for part-time faculty by combining appointments at multiple Oregon public institutions of higher education.
- Freezes the cost of parking permits to their current costs.
- Increases “staff fee privilege,” or the tuition reduction available for bargaining unit members and their dependents, by raising the number of credits eligible for reduced tuition to 16 if taken at OSU, allowing the tuition reduction to be split between two people, and adding a second, additional tuition reduction for credits taken at OSU.
- Ensures that Human Resources personnel work with faculty who need visas, an effort to remove that process from the power dynamic between faculty member and supervisor.
Our final proposal of the session was a Letter of Agreement on Support for Caregivers. To address the difficulty many of our members face in accessing affordable dependent care, we proposed that OSU create a pool of $500,000 and that a joint labor–management committee determine how to use that pool to improve faculty access to affordable caregiving.
The administration presented a counterproposal on Termination Not for Cause.
More than 70 faculty attended the March 15 session, which sent a message to the administration that these issues matter to faculty. The next bargaining session is 10am–2pm on Thursday, March 21 in the LaSells Stewart Center. Even if you can only drop by for half an hour, your attendance matters: show the administration that faculty are watching this process.
You can find a list of the currently scheduled bargaining sessions and read our updates and proposals at uaosu.org/bargaining.
Our power in negotiations comes from all of us working together as a united faculty. Becoming a member is the first step in supporting your bargaining team and securing a strong second contract . You can become a member online by going to uaosu.org/join.
Finally, you’re invited to celebrate the end of Winter Term with us on Friday, March 22, from 4pm to 6pm at Common Fields.
In solidarity,
Jan Medlock and Your Bargaining Team