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Provost Scott Coltrane on faculty union contract

Sept. 20, 2013 Tentative Collective Bargaining Agreement
To:           University of Oregon faculty members
From:      Scott Coltrane, interim provost
On September 18th, the University of Oregon (sic) and United Academics reached a tentative agreement on a first-time collective bargaining agreement. The Union has scheduled a ratification vote of the bargaining unit faculty members for Oct. 8th.  The contract will be effective through June 30, 2015.
Both bargaining teams worked diligently over the last 10 months to reach an agreement that reflects our joint commitment to support academic excellence and advance the University of Oregon as a major public research university. The tentative agreement invests in faculty at all levels, promotes academic freedom and research, and reinforces faculty members’ roles in shared governance.
Throughout the past several months, the University has repeatedly voiced its commitment to treating all faculty similarly, regardless of whether they are represented by United Academics.  That means the University plans to extend benefits offered to United Academics to non-represented faculty, including a minimum 8% salary increase at future promotion and, beginning in July 2014, subject to approval by our Board of Trustees, six weeks’ leave for new parents and reduced tuition for a second child enrolled in a UO undergraduate program.
The salary package included in the tentative agreement includes across-the-board raises, money for merit increases, and money to address equity issues affecting tenure track faculty and to establish salary floors for non-tenure track faculty:
UO/UA tentative agreement on salaries
Implement 2014
Implement 2015
TTF
FY13:
1.5% ATB
FY15:
1.5% ATB
FY14:
1.5% ATB
FY15:
3.5% Merit
FY14:
2.0% Merit
FY15:
1.5% Equity
NTTF
FY13:
1.5%ATB
FY15:
1.5% ATB
FY14:
1.5% ATB
FY15:
3.5% Merit
FY14:
2.0% Merit
FY14:
2.0% Floors
Average total raises over this contract for TTF (with compounding) will be 11.9% and average total raises for NTTF (with compounding) will be 12.4%.
Following ratification, the agreement also provides for a one-time $350 payment to full-time faculty who are members of the bargaining unit. The one-time payment for part-time faculty will be pro-rated.   The University will provide that same one-time payment to all non-represented faculty as well.
(The version posted on the “fact-check” page includes this:)
There has also been some misunderstanding by the media about what the tentative agreement means for non-tenure track faculty contracts. For all Career NTTF with non-funding contingent appointments in the first rank in each classification, the agreement provides for contracts of at least one-year in length for the first four years in rank, followed by a minimum of two-year contracts. All faculty in the middle or highest rank in each Career NTTF classification whose contracts are not funding-contingent will have at least 3-year contracts.
Drafting a first-time agreement is always a lengthy and complex process. It’s expected that faculty
members will have more questions or need for clarification. You have my word that I will do whatever I can to get those questions answered. Also, look for ongoing communications and FAQs on the UO/UA negotiations website: http://uo-ua.uoregon.edu/.

Provost Coltrane’s message does not include the administration bargaining team’s customary warning to UO faculty about Professor Harbaugh’s “false, inaccurate, misleading, and consistently anti-university” UO Matters blog, though it’s still posted on the official UO website he references:

9 Comments

  1. Anonymous 09/21/2013

    Regarding FY 13, and FY 14 adjustments when are they retro to? Or is the Goat bonus in lieu of any retro pay?

  2. Anonymous 09/21/2013

    Isn’t that interesting. If you follow the link to Harbaugh’s supposed misdeeds, you find this statement:

    “We write this letter to our University community because we believe it is both necessary and appropriate to inform you of circumstances that are significantly impeding the on-going bargaining between the University and United Academics— … “

    Circumstances? Seriously, circumstances?? Isn’t this the exact language that got Helfrich in a media episode last week?

    “Circumstances” = “I will tell you whatever I want and you can’t disprove it”. They all drink at the same trough and it’s ultimately source within the Athletic Dept.

  3. Anonymous 09/24/2013

    Found this in Friday’s Oregonian from the Associated Press:

    Faculty Contract: When students come back to school at Eastern Washington University later this month, they may be taught by a very happy professor who just got a big raise.

    The regional university isn’t celebrating a financial windfall. The new money comes from a creative new faculty contract that focuses on bringing all faculty up to the national salary averages in their fields instead of giving across-the-board raises.

    That means a few EWU professors will get raises as big as $18,000 a year during the next three years. And seven, who are paid well above market rates, will get nothing.

    The unusual contract was embraced both by the faculty union and school administrators.

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