4/27/2012: Pretty clear what it means if you got one of these letters. If you didn’t, it may mean you are in the union, or it may mean they are still processing. I’ve got a few PR requests out for more, if anyone knows please comment.
From: United Academics
@uauoregon.org>
Date: April 26, 2012 1:56:58 PM PDT
To: [XXX]
Subject: Bargaining Unit Status
Reply-To: United AcademicsDear colleagues,
By now you have probably heard that United Academics has reached an agreement
with the UO administration regarding the composition of the bargaining unit that
will be certified by the Oregon Employment Relations Board (ERB).Oregon law requires the exclusion of confidential employees, supervisory
employees, and managerial employees from the faculty bargaining unit.
Consistent with state law, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed
on April 24 affirms the exclusion of all supervisory employees, including
department heads and principal investigators who currently supervise
officers of research or other faculty. Also excluded per the April 24 MOU
are the President, the Provost, Vice Presidents, Vice Provosts,
Associate Vice Provosts, Assistant Vice Provosts, Deans, Associate Deans,
and Assistant Deans.You are receiving this message because the UO administration has
asserted that in your current role you have supervisory authority.
Although you are not included in the bargaining unit at this time, you may be
eligible for inclusion in the bargaining unit if your supervisory status changes
at any time in the future. In the meantime, we hope to promote healthy dialogue
with all groups on campus. We are building a strong and effective faculty union
that will work to promote the core teaching and research missions of the
University of Oregon through the improvement of working conditions for all faculty.If you have any questions, please contact United Academics at (541) 636-4714
or [email protected].==============================================
You are receiving this email because you are on a list of employees that the UO administration has deemed supervisory. […]@uauoregon.org>Our mailing address is:
United Academics
872 E. 13th Ave
Eugene, OR 97401
Lorraine Davis’s email said that if you have information about whether someone’s in or out to contact the General Counsel’s office. Does that mean that if you’re in a gray zone there’s room to plead your case? Can you talk your way out of the union?
And on the flip side, what if you’re a supervisory PI and you want a voice? Now that the union’s a done deal, it’s going to be negotiating on your salary, your benefits, your working conditions, etc. If someone in the union proposes to cap full professor salaries in order to give health insurance to part-time yoga instructors, the yoga instructors get a vote and the PIs don’t.
Wouldn’t faculty who aren’t in the bargaining unit still be negotiating individual contracts like they are now?
SEIU workers don’t get to vote a salary cap into an OA’s contract.
Also, I think they’re going on nothing more than job titles to decide who is supervisory or not. Some people on that list may have a job title that sounds supervisory even if their job isn’t, and there are definitely supervisory NTTF who don’t have a job title more descriptive than Research Associate/Assistant who should be on the list.
I can’t make rhyme or reason out of the bargaining unit list. In my department, there are faculty of the same rank, the same supervisory roles with respect to graduate students or postdocs, the same lack of other supervisory titles, and some are on the list and some are not. Who put this together? It’s absurd. My pro-union sympathies have been squashed by what really seems like a combination of ineptness and lack of transparency.
Don’t worry, full professors, the yoga instructors are plenty healthy. They don’t need health insurance. Your raise is far more important than livable wages or benefits for the underemployed who work for you.
If the union cannot increase the total amount of money to pay salaries — and no one so far has claimed it would — then giving health insurance to part-time yoga instructors may well depress the salary of a supervisory PI by an indirect route.
I think it’s entirely possible that the people making the list simply don’t actually know what anyone does, and now that it’s legally required that it be sorted out, there’s an actual effort to sort it out.
YES the Union could quite possibly increase the total amount put toward faculty salaries. Yes, we do claim that is one of our goal. YES, other Unions have–that is what they OFTEN do. Transparency and bargaining lead to a more fair division of resources. The UO has lots of resources–have you looked at UO Matters or the Howard Bunsis analysis of UO budgeting available at the United Academics website? Check it out. There is quite a lot of potential for raising faculty salaries all around.
Anon @11:02, since you are arguing (a) that part-time yoga instructors and full professors do not have common interests and (b) that the yoga instructors “work for” the full professors, I can only conclude that you were opposed to the bargaining unit that UAUO proposed and therefore voted against unionization.
to last 2 anon. remember, tere was no ‘vote’ and it is good to see that the union is going to be one big happy family, not just squabbling factions. looks like the union could end up making the administration look good by comparison.
“If someone in the union proposes to cap full professor salaries in order to give health insurance to part-time yoga instructors, the yoga instructors get a vote and the PIs don’t.”
I have never seen a Union propose “salary caps”, rather Unions try to negotiate floor or minimum salaries.
UO’s GTFF union had a salary cap, for at least a few years.
A salary freeze (ie, no negotiated salary increase) is not the same as a cap. Sometime negotiations produce a contract where resources are devoted to other aims, such as better health plans or the waiver of additional student fees, as happened with the GTFF.