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ASUO Pres Sam Dotters-Katz calls for student walkout if SEIU strikes

9/12/2013: Troy Brynelson has the scoop in the ODE:

In solidarity for the protest, ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz, with the support of student presidents from Oregon State and Portland State universities, has also called for students across the state walkout.

“These folks work some of the lowest paying and often least appreciated jobs on campus,” Dotters-Katz said in a statement Thursday morning. “They deserve a contract that treats them with dignity, respect and most importantly fairness.”

The fact that the UO student government is calling for students to walk out in sympathy for the underpaid UO staff certainly puts a new spin on VPAA Altmann’s call for the faculty union to stop negotiating and:

“Shift Focus Back To Educating Our Students”

Contract negotiations between the University and the faculty union, United Academics, ended Friday without a union response to the salary proposal the University put on the table earlier in the week. That’s disappointing, … The leadership of United Academics has repeatedly said it wants to do what’s best for the UO and its students and faculty. Now is the time for the union to demonstrate that commitment.

Barbara Altmann, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of French. Questions? If you have any questions about the contract negotiations, please contact me at [email protected] or (541) 346-2172.

11 Comments

  1. Anonymous 09/13/2013

    I hope faculty get the same support form students come October.

  2. Anonymous 09/13/2013

    Although I am a faculty supporter of the union, I do think that faculty economic concerns also need to be placed in perspective. I hope faculty will be mindful of their relative economic privilege and strongly support the SEIU strike, the only defense of service workers who are so taken for granted in this system that their meager salaries qualify many of them for food stamps.

    • Anonymous 09/13/2013

      SEIU should not doubt the faculty support they have. In fact, more now than ever.

    • Anonymous 09/13/2013

      This faculty member seconds that support.

    • UO Matters 09/13/2013

      I third it.

      There’s plenty of money in the jock budget to pay the UO staff decent wages. Just cut baseball.

    • Anonymous 09/13/2013

      I’ll not penalize any of my students for missing class to support SEIU.

    • UO Matters 09/13/2013

      I’ll hold class, but off campus.

    • Anonymous 09/13/2013

      I’ll hold class, but off topic.

  3. Anonymous 09/13/2013

    SEIU needs to continue to realize that although OUS is one employer, the campuses have wildly different resources. U of O and OSU can and should be able to give classified workers raises while other campuses that are not so well off shouldn’t be made to suffer. SEIU needs to start planning for the future as the system dissolves and let the Universities bargain with their own employees.

  4. Keith Appleby 09/13/2013

    If the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation still holds to some of their old principles (though, in truth, they have abandoned many of their core beliefs in recent years), then they would not cross the picket line either. The GTFF would be truly lost in their way as a Union if they did not honor the SEIU strike.

  5. Anonymous 09/14/2013

    I hope Sam is proposing to follow up with tuition hikes to pay for these raises?

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