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Update: PSU admin makes tentative agreement with faculty

Update: This looks like a big win for the PSU faculty. They got nearly 2x the money the administration had offered, and seem to have beat back the effort to gut shared governance:

Organization & Strike Threat Get Unprecedented Gains!
– Keep Contract Protections for P & T Guidelines, Past Practices
– Big Shift in Number, Certainty & Length of Fixed Term Contracts
– Advancement Path for APs – Raises Tied to Seniority
– Retain Contract Protection for AP “Positions”
– Meaningful Planning for Academic Quality
– Cost of Living Increases 2.5% and 2.5%, Mid-Year as for Others
– 1.5% Across the Board Faculty Comparator Adjustment
– 8% Promotion Increases
– Travel Fund Doubled, Faculty Enhancement Fund up 30%
– Post Tenure Review Will NOT result in Changed Job Description
– No Retaliation Against AAUP Members for Union Activity

The administration had claimed that the they had no money left. Sound familiar? Maybe their tornado reserves were larger than they’d let on. UAUO will need to increase union membership to be able to credibly make similar threats and get gains in the contract bargaining that will begin in December that will bring our salaries up from the AAU basement. More on PSU here.

Update from Betsy Hammond in the Oregonian:

According to a faculty union account, the administration agreed to give cost-of-living raises of 2.5 percent this year and next, increase the share of non-tenure-track faculty who get long-term contracts and preserve contract language giving the union say over certain university practices.

Speaking of shared governance, the UO Senate will start developing a response to Gottfredson and Geller’s attempted spring break coup this Wednesday.

PSU dept heads say it’s hard to find PhD scabs: The Oregonian has the story:

Calling administrators’ bluff that serious plans are being crafted to keep classes running in the event of a strike, the heads of every department in Portland State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences issued a signed statement spelling out why that isn’t feasible.

“We feel we are pretty much stating the obvious: The university cannot keep rolling as if nothing has changed,” said Michele Gamburd, head of the anthropology department. “It would be incredibly difficult to find qualified people even in the best of circumstances, let alone trying to hire them as scabs.

You can sign a petition in support of the PSU faculty here.

10 Comments

  1. anomaly 04/06/2014

    hard to find PhD scabs????? this will be interesting if all of the underemployed adjuncts come out of the woodwork. It will be field specific but could provide an eye opening experience for everyone. Could be significant employee turnover at the coffee houses in Portland soon…..

    • Severinus de Monzambano 04/06/2014

      It’s not just a matter of finding scabs, but finding the right scabs to fill the existing curriculum. I doubt very much that the supply of underemployed adjuncts in a medium-sized city like Portland is either large enough or of the right composition to keep PSU operating as normal. Nor is there any likelihood that underemployed adjuncts will stream into Portland on short notice for teaching gigs that will evaporate as soon as the PSU administration comes to its senses.

  2. Anonymous 04/06/2014

    The “scabs” are already there (and here): they’re just called adjuncts.

  3. Scott Clifthorne 04/06/2014

    I couldn’t disagree more with Anonymous (3:14pm). The sentiment amongst PhDs in recent cohorts who land tenure track jobs is very much “there but for the grace of God go I” when it comes to thinking about why THEY have landed their gigs whilst their highly qualified colleagues scrape for fixed-term/adjunct/etc gigs. The more we buy into the type of academe classism your comment represents, the more we all lose. We are one faculty.

  4. Scott Clifthorne 04/06/2014

    …and if you want the emerging details of the PSU Agreement:
    *******************************************************
    Announcements – and More to Come!
    AP Caucus: Tues, April 8, Noon to 1:30, SMSU 327 – Lunch Provided
    Fixed-Term & Research Faculty Caucus: Weds, April 9th, Noon to 1:30, SMSU 327
    Lunch Provided
    Tenure-Line Faculty Caucus, Weds, April 9th, 3:30 – 5, SMSU 327

    Organization & Strike Threat Get Unprecedented Gains!
    – Keep Contract Protections for P & T Guidelines, Past Practices
    – Big Shift in Number, Certainty & Length of Fixed Term Contracts
    – Advancement Path for APs – Raises Tied to Seniority
    – Retain Contract Protection for AP “Positions”
    – Meaningful Planning for Academic Quality
    – Cost of Living Increases 2.5% and 2.5%, Mid-Year as for Others
    – 1.5% Across the Board Faculty Comparator Adjustment
    – 8% Promotion Increases
    – Travel Fund Doubled, Faculty Enhancement Fund up 30%
    – Post Tenure Review Will NOT result in Changed Job Description
    – No Retaliation Against AAUP Members for Union Activity

    There’s more to be done in the Long Campaign for PSU & Public HIgher Ed: to increase state funding; reduce tuition, fees & student debt; and shift campus priorities BACK toward academics and instruction.

    But this contract is a big win, and we got it by working together and standing up for our students, our university and ourselves.

    With this contract, we go forward toward a PSU that better embodies our academic values, including a student-centered budget; academic freedom; and both security and compensation as rewards for dedicated service to the University.

    DETAILS:

    On the eve of the April 6th deadline for students to drop classes with a 100% refund, PSU-AAUP and the PSU Administration bargaining teams reached a tentative agreement, signed at 5:30 this morning after a bargaining marathon stretching over Friday and Saturday and well into Sunday morning.

    Provost Andrews and President Wiewel’s Chief of Staff Lois Davis were on hand all night. President Wiewel consulted by phone throughout the night, having canceled his planned trip to Turkey to attend to bargaining.

    The PSU-AAUP Executive Council will decide whether or not to recommend this deal to the members for ratification, in its regular meeting on Thursday, April 10th. If the Executive Council agrees, it will invite members to participate in an electronic vote on whether or not to ratify this contract. A majority vote to ratify will make this our contract for the biennium.

    Here’s what we agreed to:

    Article 8: Past Practices – Current Language, retaining Protection for Past Practices
    (Unwritten Work Policies)

    Article 14: Promotion & Tenure – Current Language, retaining Contract Protection
    for Promotion & Tenure Guidelines

    Article 16: Post-Tenure Review – procedure to be drafted by Faculty Senate, with
    assurance that post-tenure review shall NOT result in discipline or changes in job description.

    Article 17: Academic Professionals – Current Language, retaining AP job security
    tied to the “position,” not your “appointment”

    Article 18: Fixed Term Faculty
    Seniority, meaning eligibility for multi-year contracts,
    after 4 years, down from 6 years.

    80% of eligible faculty on multi-year contracts, up from 45% – allocated by
    seniority to the most senior fixed term faculty members

    Instructors with multi-year contracts: 2 year contracts
    Senior Instructors & all other titles: 3 year contracts

    Article 19: Professional Development – Travel Fund Doubled to $500k,
    Faculty Enhancement Grant Fund Increased 30% to $650k

    Article 24: Working Conditions – Verbal Harassment Prohibited

    Article 27: Progressive Sanctions – Ongoing Bargaining by Task Force

    Article 30: Salary
    Cost of Living Increases 2.5% each year, mid-year
    Increases tied to promotion = 8%
    Across the Board Comparator Adjustment for Fixed Term & Tenure Line
    Faculty 1.5%, Jan 1, 2015
    Compression Adjustment for APs, July 1, 2014
    People at PSU at least 3 years but < 6 years: 2%
    People at PSU for 6 years but < 9 years: 3%
    People at PSU for 9 or more years: 4%

    All minima raised to $40k, Jan 1, 2014
    Minima between $40k and $50k increase 3% Jan 1, 2014
    Minima above $50 increase 2.75% annually

    Compensation for new ranks to be fixed in interim bargaining

    Salary Pool of 4% of Faculty up for Post-Tenure Review, to be allocated
    as raises in manner to be determined by the Faculty Senate

    Article 31: Insurance – We will continue to pay 5% of health premiums but not more

    Article 34: Library Faculty Development Days – removed from contract at
    request of PSU Librarians

    Article 44: Term of Agreement – contract will expire Nov 30, 2015; previous Aug 31
    date falls weeks before fall enrollment known & Admin willing to talk $$

    Letter of Agreement on Academic Quality:
    Representatives of PSU-AAUP, the Faculty Senate, PSUFA (part-time
    faculty), ASPSU and Admin will craft a plan toward aspirational
    comparators, aided by support fund for task force

    Letter of Agreement on Paid Parental Leave & Work-Life Policies
    Joint PSU-AAUP/Admin task force to consider proposals for paid parental
    as available at U of O, and other work-life policies

    Memorandum of Understanding: Summer Session – Admin to report to PSU-AAUP
    and Faculty Senate on Summer Session 2012, 2013 & 2014, including
    total budgets, number of courses and credits taught and contract status of
    faculty teaching classes by department and unit.

    No retaliation against any AAUP members for activity in contract campaign

    Upcoming Conversation about Resolving Outstanding Disputes

    It's obviously not the compensation package PSU-AAUP members deserve, but better than we had anticipated in the context of the President's ongoing public commitment to the view that PSU has a $15 million structural deficit.

    We will need to keep working to ensure a full shift to a student-centered budget that prioritizes academic investments above all else.

    There's more work to be done but, in the meanwhile, let's enjoy Spring Term!

    Mary King, President, PSU-AAUP, on behalf of the PSU-AAUP Bargaining Team
    VP for Bargaining Ron Narode, with Gina Greco, David Hansen, Bob Liebman, Anh Ly, Leanne Serbulo and Phil Lesch (ex officio)

    p.s. To ensure that you receive PSU-AAUP e-mail, check your spam folder in both your PSU webmail AND any other e-mail program you use. Mark any PSU-AAUP e-mail you find in either spot "not junk" to teach your filters what it what!

    • Anonymous 04/07/2014

      Where’s the merit component?

      • uomatters Post author | 04/07/2014

        Looks like that all went to their bloated administrators and property speculators.

  5. UO is a circus. 04/07/2014

    … and we still don’t want to reserve the strike option? Silly.

    • uomatters Post author | 04/07/2014

      I think we can strike as soon as the contract expires and we give fair warning – i.e. fall 2015.

      • Same Song 04/07/2014

        One more time (well, probably not), we have the same strike clause PSU does. It’s only in effect during the contract. After the contract expires, striking is an option.

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