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Bargaining Update, October 3rd, 2024
92 attendees, 27 in person, 65 online
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Due to the number of members who spoke out inside the 9/27 Board of Trustees meeting and attended bargaining in person and online, we reached two tentative agreements. We go back to the table to look at negotiating wages Thursday and Friday of next week. As we get ready to negotiate wages, we know from budget town halls and department meetings, administration will try to scare us into accepting less than what we’re worth. The reality is, a new report by higher education finance expert Howard Bunsis finds PSU in “solid financial health.”
Help win the compensation that lets us afford to live where we work, reduces turnover, and fairly compensates us for all we do to make PSU run every day by RSVPing to be there as we negotiate pay raises on Thursday 10/10 (Vanport) and Friday 10/11 (RMNC).
Layoff protections
The bargaining teams spent much of the day discussing provisions for laid-off employees. These were divided into two groups: temporary measures to help employees laid-off in the coming year due to program reduction and extraordinary budget cutting; and longer-term provisions to be incorporated into the contract. We came to a “conceptual agreement” on the creation of scholarships to allow laid-off members or their dependents who are enrolled in courses at PSU or other Oregon Public Universities to continue their education at PSU for up to four years, depending on the type of program they are enrolled in. The amount of the scholarship remains to be negotiated, but the AAUP team proposed the equivalent of the current staff fee privilege, which provides a 70% discount on up to 12 credits. Our team also proposed that the staff fee privilege become part of the layoff rights for the duration of the contract.
We also discussed severance pay. We are likely to come to an agreement of some sort of severance pay for those laid-off in the coming year, although the amount remains to be negotiated. AAUP advocated for pay equal to one month of salary for every year of service, with a minimum of three months’ pay and a maximum of 12 months’ pay. We also proposed that the notice of termination be provided when layoffs are effected by Article 22 retrenchment and that laid-off employees receive severance pay when notice deadlines are not met. The administration’s team has so far resisted severance pay beyond the current fiscal year.
The parties agreed on other assistance to laid-off members, including job placement services and application and interview opportunities in advance of external PSU job postings. The AAUP team proposed contract revisions that would expressly prohibit hiring adjunct faculty and part-time employees for work that should be performed by someone on the recall list.
Researcher job stability
Responding to the job instability concerns from researchers' bargaining surveys and departmental organizing, the bargaining team put forward a proposal for an $80,000 pool of bridge funding which would be matched dollar for dollar departmentally. The administration will respond to this proposal in our October 10th session.
Workload protections
The bargaining session concluded with a return to the question of workload. We are still in the data collection phase of the IBB process, but the PSU-AAUP team previewed our interest in seeing an expanded definition of what constitutes unreasonable and excessive workload, including examples. Both bargaining teams acknowledged that the processes currently available in the contract for addressing workload issues are underutilized, despite the concerns that so many PSU-AAUP members have expressed about excessive workload and burnout.
Can we count on you to be there when salary data is on the table Thursday and Friday?
A supermajority of the 1,200+ PSU-AAUP represented faculty and staff identified wage increases as their most important bargaining priority in bargaining surveys and departmental meetings. We’ve seen significant movement from the administration when many of us attend bargaining in person in our PSU-AAUP t-shirts. To win the conditions our colleagues, families, students, and communities deserve, can we count on you to be there Thursday and Friday? RSVP here. |
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