EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Your UAOSU bargaining team and the administration team met on Thursday, July 25 in front of a standing room only crowd of faculty observers. During the 2.5 hour session we passed four counterproposals to the administration team: Compensation, Academic Freedom and Shared Governance, Academic Classification and Rank, and a proposed letter of agreement on caregivers. The administration team passed 1 counterproposal: Health, Safety, Facilities and Work Site.
Last night the administration team canceled our session scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday July 31. We are scheduled to meet again in August (see session info below) and look forward to the continued support from faculty. If you haven’t attended a session yet, August is a great time to sit in on bargaining. Even showing up for 20 minutes demonstrates to the administration that faculty are engaged with the negotiations.
UPCOMING SESSIONS
Use the links below to add these to your calendar.
- CANCELED – Wed July 31
FULL UPDATE
The first session began with the union team passing our counterproposals. The first of these was Compensation. Our counterproposal is mostly similar to our original proposal, with a slight decrease in the proposed across the board raise amount in the first year as we are proposing a significant flat adjustment of $8,000 in the first year to compensate for inflation and bring us in line with our peer institutions. The administration team’s counterproposal on compensation was so paltry (most of the six years proposed offer total raise ranges of 0-1%) that we are essentially asking them to try again.
Next we passed a proposed letter of agreement on caregivers. We are re-proposing a one-time pool of $500,000, similar to what UO has done, to be distributed for caregiver needs by a joint management-labor committee. The administration, in their counterproposal, refused to commit to any funding, leaving only a purely advisory committee. We know that they can do better.
Next, we passed a counterproposal on Academic Freedom and Shared Governance. While we have made some movement towards the administration, we are still far apart on a few issues. We want to protect faculty members’ freedom of expression, particularly in their offices and personal spaces, and we continue to seek to enshrine the right of faculty to participate in Shared Governance by having a non-zero amount of service expectation in their position descriptions. We are also attempting to codify an instructor’s oversight of grading, and to make sure that assigned grades cannot be changed without an instructor’s consent without demonstrable evidence that the grading was discriminatory, capricious, not aligned with accepted pedagogical practice, or substantially inconsistent with the basis for evaluation specified in the syllabus.
Finally, we passed a counterproposal on Academic Classification and Rank. We struck the different categories of instructor (Instructor-PAC, Instructor-ALS, Instructor ESL) as we do not see the need for the differentiation, especially considering that not all categories are even used. We added back language on not needing a competitive search when a faculty member is recategorized. We also added back language about communicating to faculty when recategorization petitions are denied, including why they were denied and a reasonable time frame for this communication to occur. We reinserted protections preventing cuts to salary if a non-tenure track faculty member transitions into another non-tenure track position. We also reinserted language to ensure that work that belongs in our bargaining unit is tied to a position classified in our bargaining unit, even if it is only a portion of someone’s work. We want to prevent classifying someone as professional faculty when they are clearly doing bargaining unit work (e.g. teaching and/or research).
At the end of the session, the administration passed a counterproposal on Health, Safety, Facilities and Work Site. We were pleased to see that “employee negligence” was removed as a condition for not repairing or replacing equipment that was damaged, lost or stolen during its normal operation. However, we are concerned that they struck that repairs or replacements would be at the expense of the administration. They accepted some language on remote and flexible work, but are unwilling to include any policy or processes around such arrangements in the CBA.
The next bargaining session is 9am-11am on Friday, August 16th (location TBD). 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, as well as 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.
In solidarity,
Filix Maisch and Your Bargaining Team