Bargaining Update Session 1: April 24, 2013
Administration questions "governance" issues in the contract
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Ron Narode, AAUP VP Collective Bargaining
The Bargaining Teams:
AAUP Collective Bargaining Team: Sy Adler, David Hansen, Mary King, Marcia Klotz, Phil Lesch, Bob Liebman, Anh Ly, Ron Narode (Leader)
PSU Admin Collective Bargaining Team: Carol Mack (Leader), David Reese (PSU General Counsel) , Shana Sechrist (PSU VP Human Resources and former deputy counsel)
ASPSU: Thomas Worth (ASPSU University Affairs director), Max Mulligan
On Wednesday, April 24, 2013, our first bargaining session was held in the Market Center Building. By mutual agreement, Ron Narode facilitated the meeting that mostly consisted of an exchange of our respective views of our goals for Portland State University and for our contract negotiations. Here is the AAUP introductory statement. Each team also presented a list of contract articles that are opened in this bargaining session. We have only just begun describing our rationale for opening each of these. Here are the articles AAUP opened and the rationale for each. While we have not yet seen specific language for the articles that the Administration has opened, we did have an initial impression from our meeting that I share with you below.
Take-away: The big take-away, from the perspective of our team, is that the administration would like to move much of our current contract language around issues of faculty governance from the contract into the Faculty Senate's realm (an important advisory board to the Administration). We fear that ultimately, the Administration wants governance to be “shared” disproportionately, leaving faculty fewer rights and privileges. The removal of these powers from the contract would mean significant changes in long standing evaluation procedures and would erode or remove current safeguards around process (removal from the contract means procedural violations could no longer be grieved). The Administration wants to discuss “evaluation” for everyone in the unit: tenure-track and tenured faculty with respect to P&T and Post-Tenure Review; Fixed-Term Faculty; Research Faculty; and Academic Professionals. The topic of “evaluation” will be bargained on May 7. There are other articles opened that relate to faculty rights as well (see schedule below).
ATTEND BARGAINING
MAY 7, 12:00 – 3:00 PM, SMITH 294
TOPIC: FACULTY “EVALUATION”
The relevant articles and dates, times, and locations for their discussion are as follows:
May 7, 12-3pm Smith 294 (Carol facilitates)
Articles: 14 (P&T), 16 (Post-Tenure Peer Review), 17 (Academic Professionals), 18 (Fixed-Term Faculty)
May 21, 12-3pm MCB650 (Ron facilitates)
Articles: 17, 18, 27 (Progressive Sanctions)
LOA: #3 (Workload Task Force), #4 (Peer Review Task Force), #5 (Work/Life Balance for Academic Professionals)
June 4, 12-3pm Smith 296-298 (Carol facilitates)
Articles: 34 (Library Faculty Development Days), 35 (Personnel Files), 36 (Outside Employment)
July 2, 12-3pm Smith 338
Please come to as many Collective Bargaining Sessions as you can. Look forward to seeing you there.
Ron