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UO staff union bargains with dying OUS for a fair contract

For historical reasons our staff bargain with OUS, which will dissolve on July 1, not UO. The website for SEIU local 503 is here, with a bargaining update:

  • Fair Pay: Cost of Living Adjustments Better Than Inflation (CPI & 2%). The Union proposal is “Effective July 1, 2015, salary rates shall be increased by a percentage equal to the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for the Portland, OR metropolitan area from 2013 to 2014 plus two percentage points (CPI + 2%).” And, effective July 1, 2016, a similar calculation for that year’s COLA.
  • Catch Up: Keep Steps in Place plus Add a Step at the Top. Our Union Bargaining Team is proposing that, effective July 1, 2015, one step will be added to the top of each salary range in the Compensation Plan. The economy is continuing to improve, and it is important that income growth be experienced as much or more at the working families’ level as well as at the highest levels of business.
  • Living Wages for All: $15/Hour for direct employees and contractor employees. This proposal would set a $15/hour wage floor in Oregon’s universities, for classified employees, and also for employees of university contractors. The “Fight for 15” is being recognized around the country as a call to action to put a stop to the problem of employers paying some of their workers so little they could qualify for public assistance, in effect relying on public subsidies for their employees to be able to make ends barely meet. Around 2,700 university employees around the State now earn below the income level for a family of four to qualify for food stamps.
  • Fair Benefits: Same Full Health Coverage for Part-Time Classified as for Part-Time Unclassified Workers. Part-time unclassified employees in Oregon’s universities currently qualify for full-time health care coverage. Our proposal is for part-time classified employees to have the same benefit.
  • University Affordability: Keep Tuition at a Level Oregon’s Students Can Afford, Restrain Administrative Bloat….

UO student reporter Anna Lieberman has more in the Emerald, here.  The UO staff have been getting the shaft from JH, just like the faculty and OA’s. But the Johnson Hall ATM seems to have no withdrawal limit for UO’s bloated and increasingly overpaid Senior Administrators. Gosh, it’s almost like they set each others’ raises:

6 Comments

  1. Fishwrapper 02/28/2015

    I thought bargaining is happening between SEIU and the University Shared Services Enterprise, which is facilitating much of the same “system-wide” bargaining that was done as OUS; but each campus is negotiating its own contract. As it was explained to me, the old OUS bargaining team is essentially intact and working on behalf of the separate campuses via the USSE office, but there will not be a CBA with the OUS, – which, as you noted, won’t exist – nor with the USSE.

    It will be very interesting to see what kinds of differences between the campus agreements will develop as bargaining proceeds, and how each campus reacts to the bargaining sessions.

    • No 03/01/2015

      There is one contract for all campuses. The bargaining unit is every classified employee from every campus. If the Universities might have proposals as you suggest above, but the bargaining unit remains the same unless the employees decide otherwise.

      This has been a real sticking point for the Boards. They pretend to have total autonomy for their schools, but the reality is, they are going to need to get the permission of 6 other schools before signing this contract.

  2. Fishwrapper 03/01/2015

    Good to know. There’s some confusing (mis)information out there. I apologize for adding to it if I did.

  3. curious 03/02/2015

    Why is Dean Moffitt compensated at the top of the scale when UO Law continuously slips in rankings?

    • duckduckgo 03/02/2015

      If you are in charge of a failing unit, you need to be paid extra to deal with the problems. If you are in charge of a well-functioning unit, you need to be paid extra to keep you there. It is hard to imagine a scenario that doesn’t call for more pay for administrators.

    • Also curious 03/02/2015

      Why does VPFA Moffitt keep funneling money into the law school when it keeps blowing it on administrator compensation?

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