Bargaining Update – 11/14/24
There was a lot of action at the bargaining table today. We started off with a presentation from Howard Bunsis, a CPA and professor who AAUP contracted with to provide a financial analysis of the PSU budget. His presentation made it clear that PSU is financially healthy, and there is money available, but the administration has chosen to use accounting practices that are not as transparent as the practices used at other similar public higher ed institutions. RSVP for Howard Bunsis’ 11/21 9:30am presentation on PSU’s finances and the Board of Trustee speak-out by all the on-campus unions about the cuts and the lack of the contract we deserve.
Win on bilingual pay
Due to the record number of PSU-AAUP members and students who have shown up in recent weeks, the teams agreed on a final version of language that grants premium pay for those who use a language other than English in the course of their duties. This is new language in our contract, which finally compensates members for their work which makes possible PSU’s transition to an HSI and an AANAPISI serving institution. We have not yet established the amount of the premium, as that will be determined when we get into the economic phase of bargaining.
We then went back and forth over the remote work agreement trial balloon. The administration has shown very little willingness to give members more opportunity to work remotely. The best we could do was to require a 15-day notice before a remote agreement ends. Attached to this was a trial balloon pertaining to campus closure for inclement weather. The union team wanted a more clear and consistent rule on who is expected to work and who is not, but the administration team responded with language that would make things worse for our members, instead of better, so we responded that we should revert back to the current contract language.
The administration team gave a verbal response to our attempt to increase vacation time for academic professionals. They said they didn’t have a formal response, but if they were to put something together, they would want to reduce vacation accruals for new hires to offset increases for more senior APs. The union team does not support this idea.
Admin refuses protections from abusive supervisors
We moved on to the respectful workplace. Last week the union offered a trial balloon that required faculty and staff to be treated with respect, professionalism and courtesy. Our trial balloon listed examples of unacceptable behavior, such as disciplining members in front of other employees or the public, verbal abuse (insulting or belittling comments), and making statements that threaten a member’s employment. The administration response was to strike all that and replace it with a notice of PSU policies that cover behavior that is already prohibited by state and federal law. Today we offered a revised version, that pared down our list a bit, but left in the most substantial parts. There was some discussion, but no sense of any willingness to move on the administration team.
Massive practice picket
At noon, PSU-AAUP members staged a massive practice picket decrying the Cudd administration's notice of layoff letters and stalling for over 100 hours in bargaining. Members were joined by students organizing to reverse the cuts, every on-campus union, and a huge swath of Portland labor from letter carriers, to AFT members, to organized rideshare drivers. Faculty spoke powerfully about the impacts to their departments where more than one-third of faculty received notice of layoff and the inspiration they drew from students mobilizing to reverse the Cudd administration’s austerity. SEIU-represented classified workers shared about their labs being hollowed out. Students whose faculty received notice of layoff letters read from a student survey detailing the impacts of short staffing on students and shared chants they designed to support PSU-AAUP members.
Admin refuses to bargain economics
Towards the end of the day, we brought up the planned agenda for next week’s bargaining, which would be focused on economics. In an unexpected move, the administration team stated that they weren’t willing to bargain economics until we resolved all the outstanding matters we were already working on. This, despite the fact that weeks ago the teams mutually agreed to devote both days to economics, and these “economic summit” bargaining days had already twice been pushed back at Administration’s insistence.
It is unclear whether this was a delaying tactic, but our team is not willing to let the administration team dictate when we are going to discuss economics, so we stated that we are done with bargaining, and will now go into the mediation phase.
Mediation phase of bargaining
Mediation cannot be started until the teams have bargained at least 150 days, and after that point, either team can call for mediation. We passed the 150-day milestone on Monday, but we were willing to continue bargaining as long as there was reason to think we could make progress. The administration announcement this afternoon made it clear that our efforts would not be matched by the other side.
It will likely be at least several weeks before mediation can be scheduled, but the union team remains willing to discuss the outstanding issues, but we will not let the administration dictate the terms of bargaining. Bargaining tomorrow 11/15 is canceled as teams file mediation paperwork and pivot to mediation.
We’re recommending all members help continue to turn up the heat on the Cudd administration to reverse the cuts and stop stalling a fair contract: RSVP for Howard Bunsis’ 11/21 9:30am presentation on PSU’s finances and the Board of Trustee speak-out by all the on-campus unions.
 |
|
|
|
