Update on Bargaining New Ranks
Leanne Serbulo, Vice President Collective Bargaining
On Thursday, June 5th, the two teams met for a second bargaining session to negotiate the effects of the implementation of the revision to the University Promotion and Tenure Guidelines, and to set salaries for the new fixed-term faculty rates. At our first meeting, we offered a proposal that was based on both internal equity considerations and external comparator data. The administration passed across a proposal that contained basically the same salaries they had offered during our March bargaining session (See below). The administration insists that external comparator data is not relevant because departments can always offer a salary which is higher than the minimum. They propose a three-tiered system that ranks instructor and research assistants/ associate ranks at the bottom, the clinical and professor of practice ranks above that, and the tenure-line ranks at the top.
We responded with a counter-proposal (see proposal for the transition language we proposed as well). We lowered our Senior Research Associate II salary because researchers still have the option to promote to the professorial ranks under the new P&T guidelines. We slightly lowered our Senior Instructor II salary to take into account our members who promoted to Assistant Professor and had to earn a doctorate degree to do so. We have not moved on the Professor of Practice/Clinical professor ranks because the administration’s refusal to consider external comparator data when assigning salaries to these ranks is problematic.
The administration has promised to send us a counter-proposal early next week. We will meet again in to negotiate on Monday, June 16th at 9:00 in the Market Center building.
When members make their voices heard, it helps us at the table. Email Carol Mack (mackc@pdx.edu) or join us on June 16th!