3/2/2020: Full email to Faculty Union on what went down last Thursday here, this is just the summary:
A Note from UA President Chris Sinclair
Since the establishment of our union, the University of Oregon has moved to a model of faculty compensation that rewards excellence at promotion and regular intervals post-promotion. These excellence raises are coupled with smaller yearly raises which (though they are not always structured as cost-of-living adjustments) ensure we are not falling behind between major reviews. While the exact numbers and configuration of the yearly raises is subject to bargaining, the compensation system is stable enough to allow for financial and strategic planning by administrators, and it provides positive incentives for faculty to exceed expectations in their work to support the mission of the university.
The administration proposes to change this system by offering far-less-than-inflation yearly raises, and reducing excellence raises from 4-8% to 1.5-3%. Moreover, they are proposing that we return to the old-boys system of distributing raises whereby deans and the provost control disbursement of some of the raise pool without regard to departmental merit policies.
Suffice it to say, this economic proposal will be vociferously countered by the union. Our initial proposal was to maintain the 4-8% excellence raises as well as 3%, 9%, and 4% yearly raises (distributed between COLA, merit, and equity) over the three years of the contract. I do not suspect we will be moving off of our initial proposal until we see a reasonable economic proposal from the university that covers inflation and maintains the current level of excellence raises.
This brings us to the subject of what you can do to ensure fair faculty compensation.
First: come to bargaining! Sit in the audience, write some emails or grade some papers. Simply by being there you are proving to the administration that you care about your contract/compensation, and that you are paying attention to their insulting offers.
Second: think about what it would take for you to go out on strike. At this point, we are far from declaring a strike, and we hope that we can avoid one. However, our ultimate power as a union is the ability to withhold our labor, and each of us needs to decide where the line between fair compensation and administrative exploitation is.
Finally, talk to your colleagues about bargaining, and how they feel about their compensation. We are always happy to swing by your unit/department/lab to hear your opinions and talk through unit-specific concerns.
Bargaining MMXX-VIII live-blog: Admin counter on raises is a 4% real cut
Synopsis: The administration came back with a proposal for annual 1.65% raises, all merit, no COLA. With Western US inflation running at about 3% a year, this amounts to real annual pay cuts of about 1.3% a year, or 4% over the 3-year contract. There are also cuts to post-tenure review raises, and a very small internal equity pool. The proposal also takes some of the merit money away from departments and gives it to deans to distribute at their pleasure.
The reception from the union bargaining team, and the many faculty in the room, was predictably chilly. Matella repeatedly backed off, saying this was just their first offer. Presumably the union will give a counter proposal soon.
Matella also said that this low-ball proposal was conditioned on the. administration’s estimates of the costs of the union’s other proposals, so those might need to be resolved before there’s any real progress towards equilibrium. But the administration didn’t counter those today, presumably out of a desire to drag this thing out til summer.
MMXX-VIII live-blog. My continuing series on Budget Buckets is here. If you don’t like my blog read the official Union tweets or Facebook page. Usual disclaimer: This is my opinion and interpretation of what the bargainers are saying, thinking, or should be saying or thinking. Nothing is a quote unless in quotes.
The room is packed with faculty – and a small claque of well paid senior admins.
The session starts with VPFA Jamie Moffitt giving the administration’s take on the budget and “cost drivers”. The Union team has to drink a shot every time she says “bucket”. Also, there’s Bingo! Must be present to win.
Moffitt gives the usual powerpoint presentation, which we’ve heard many times. She’s getting better at it, sprinkling in folksy phrases like “a pretty scary number”. Among the things she does not mention:
UO’s overall annual budget is about $1.1B. The E&G (Educational and General) bucket is about $650M. Faculty salaries and benefits are about $200M, or less than a third of that. Plenty of ways to reallocate money.
$2.5M subsidy for the Jock Box from the E&G fund. $500K for Matt Court. $350K for Autzen skybox.
$10M subsidy for the law school.
Declining number of faculty, increasing number of top administrators.
Payments to consultants such as Brad Shelton’s Academic Analytics, Kevin Reed’s outside law firms, the new “Hearts and Minds” PR campaign, Ellen Herman’s Faculty Tracking Software, Yvette Alex-Assensoh’s expensive custom Campus Climate surveys, etc. I’ll have more on these costs later – because Moffitt, who is ostensibly in charge of them, won’t.
Taking ~$2.3M from the academic side to pay for the Hayward Field utility tunnel and wire up The Phildo, while claiming Knight is paying for it all.
Borrowing money to build new dorms in time for the 2021 Track & Field championships.
Sending UO’s lobbyists to the legislature to ask for $40M for the championships, and $110M for Knight Campus, instead of money for UO’s core academic mission.
Moffitt does deliver some actual good news, on PERS. UO’s PERS costs are down this year. The legislature has already taken steps to stretch out the amortization period, and if they do the logical thing and stretch it out to 30 years, the problem goes away.
She mentions the new guaranteed tuition scheme. If the BoT adopts this, it will lock in each class of students at a constant *nominal* tuition – i.e. declining real tuition. If enrollment or state funding goes down, this will create a real budget crisis. Or, from the administration’s point of view, an opportunity to lay-off faculty and eliminate raises for the following round of union bargaining.
Moffitt’s done, Union team caucuses.
They’re back. No questions for Moffitt, since everyone already knows exactly how she’ll avoid answering them.
Moving on the the Administration’s Salary counter-proposal:
Matella: It’s a risky world. And the Union put all kinds of expensive stuff in other articles. (I’m guessing she doesn’t mean the proposal to create a Teaching Professor title.)
Their counter:
1.65% pool for merit increases, each year. 0.25% of that 1.65% will be held back from departments by the deans, to be allocated at their discretion to their buddies. to the exceptionally meritorious, as determined by the deans.
Keeps the 8% promotion raises. Cuts the 4% post-promotion review raises to 1.5-3%.
Establishes a one-time $450K pool for internal equity raises. (i.e. about 0.1% of salary over the 3 years.) Administration decides who gets it. Seems to be nothing to prevent them from giving it all to faculty outside the bargaining unit i.e. PI’s, law professors, department heads. But’s it’s so little money, who cares.
AND:
The Administration can cancel these raises if the state cuts the amount the state gives to the PUSF fund (which supports all the public universities.
Cecil: Ignoring the cuts in real pay you are proposing, why are you being so petty about taking control of part of merit raises away from the departments?
Sinclair: You really want departments to do a full merit review for everybody, every year, for merit increases of 1.4%?
Matella: Yes. And we’ll be cutting your base pay 3% a year, after inflation.
Henry, normally the best-behaved member of the union team, can’t take it any more. Eleanor has to take him out of the room, over his vocal protests.
Epstein to Matella: How do you suggest we spin merit raises that are less than the cost of living to potential new hires?
Matella: What’s the Portland Metro CPI increasing at?
Random Economist: They no longer compile it. Western US is running at about 3.1%. Cecil: Shut up Harbaugh, last I looked it was 2.9%.
Matella: This is just our first counter. “I’d prefer to have more money to recruit and retain our most meritorious faculty”.
Rosiek: “So, overall you’re proposing a 4% cut in real pay over the 3 years. That’s not a question.”
Cecil: If you don’t have money to pay current faculty, why are Schill and Phillips still hiring new ones? What went on in the room of really smart people, when they asked Brad Shelton how this would impact raises for current faculty? Did he actually believe that Chuck Lillis and the Board would come through with the funding they promised when they got the legislature to pass SB270?
Matella: This is just our starting proposal. But I believe 1.4% a year will be enough to recruit and retain excellent faculty. Besides, we have no problem offering good starting salaries, and we think new PhD’s are too dumb to read the contract before accepting an offer.
Moving on to Section 4, on promotion etc.
Cecil: Why are you cutting post-tenure review raises at the same time you’re threatening full profs with a quickie way to take away their tenure?
Matella: Yeah, that was a mistake. We’ll be back with something less nuclear.
Cecil: Current senior faculty have been able to go through 2 cycles of 4% post-tenure raises. You’ll introduce inequities.
Random Economist: Even with those raises, at UO full profs are only paid 87% of our comparators:
Green: The Oregon Equal Pay Act requires you to make equity adjustments, even without the union contract. So you’re going to be legally required to pay more than this anyway, as soon as someone wins a lawsuit. Why do you think we’d bargain over your legal obligations.
Matella: Right. But remember, last year we spent $120K on an external consultant who told us we didn’t have any big equity problems. [See 6/3/2019: UO pays equity consultant ~$120,000 to give 12 faculty $4,700 raises] We need. your help taking the fall again.
Cecil: The Faculty didn’t start a Union to give the Administration carte blanche control over faculty raises. As in past CBA’s, our proposal gives the departments the power – write clear policies, use them to give raises. Why do you want to take that away?
Matella: Kevin Reed is freaking over the OEPA, or at least we’re hoping you’ll believe he is. Can you help us write criteria that would give the Provost control of raises?
Cecil: We gave you a proposal. You ignored it when you wrote this.
Epstein: Section 5 is about retention raises. If you really have no money, how can you afford this? Matella: That’s money we have to spend. And we won’t tell you how big that pool is.
Moving on to Section 8: Funding Level.
[One of the more obvious problems with this poorly written section is that it activates when the statewide PUSF is cut. Suppose the state closes EOU, SOU, WOU, takes 1/2 their money out of the PUSF for OSAC scholarships and redistributes the rest to UO and the remaining universities. Triggered.]
Cecil: So, if state funding is cut, you can cancel all the raises? Matella: We’d bargain with you for 90 days. It might not be a freeze. Cecil: If we don’t agree in 90 days, then you get to do whatever you want?
[On the budget matter, Moffitt’s E&G bucket is about $650M. Faculty salaries and benefits are about $200M.]
New admin proposal on University Distinguished Teaching Faculty:
This is a bizarre Admin counter to the Union’s proposal on “Teaching Professors”. The Administration won’t let distinguished teaching NTTF’s title’s include the magic word “professor” or give them job security. Would give them shot at a 3-year appointment with a $3K stipend (not a permanent raise) and 2 course releases per year for TEP service. So the administration is proposing to *reduce* the amount of teaching our best teachers do? Why not give them a better title and a raise instead?
Break
The Admin is back with counters on Notices of Appointment and Career Faculty Review etc. But I’m done live-blogging. See you next week.
2/24/2020: VII recap – Here’s what the union proposed back on Jan 9th for pay:
Salary Improvements
For FY21, we proposed a 3% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for all faculty effective July 1, 2020.
For FY22, we proposed a 3% COLA, a 5% merit pool, and a 1% equity pool – all effective July 1, 2021.
For FY23, we proposed a 3% COLA and a 1% equity pool effective July 1, 2022.
We proposed significant increases to our salary floors. Salary floors have not been increased since 2015, and changes are long overdue. We provided the administration with a choice on how to proceed with salary floors.
The first option increases the standard floor for 9-month faculty to $50,000 and for 12-month faculty to $61,500. The floors would maintain the adjustments for PE faculty (66.67% of the standard floor) and for Research Assistants (87.17% of the standard floor). We also proposed a mechanism to adjust these floors to account for compression the large increases to the floors would cause.
The second option would tie the salary floors to a percentage of the “average senior administrator salary.” We proposed that 9-month faculty earn 13.13% and 12-month faculty earn 16.14% of the average senior administrator salary. This currently works out to about $50,000 for 9-month faculty, and $61,500 for 12-month faculty.
We also proposed a change to the promotion and post-tenure raises. We proposed adding a post-promotion review for Career faculty at their highest rank. For both Career and TT faculty, we proposed an 8% raise for exceeding expectations and 4% raise for meeting expectations. …
This Thursday’s bargaining session will be the Administration’s first counterproposal on economics. For the Faculty Union’s take on what’s likely to go down, and a report on Bargaining VII last week, check their bargaining website here and their digest below:
How the Administration Values the Faculty
Executive Summary
The administration team brought a proposal designed to ensure that everyone understands that only active tenure-track faculty’s contributions to the mission of the University matter to them. We resume bargaining this Thursday, February27, at noon in Chiles 125. The administration told us that they intend to bring a response to our salary proposal. Before they give us their proposal, there will be a presentation from VP for Finance and Administration Jamie Moffitt. If you want to hear Jamie tell us that despite Tykeson, Knight Campus, Knight Tower, Hayward Field, administrative bonuses, proliferating deanlets, and general administrative bloat, the university is actually quite poor, be there at noon. We may even learn about buckets. If you’d rather skip the preliminaries, showing up around 12:30 would be a better option. As always, please bring a colleague or twelve and feel free to duck in and out and bring your work as needed. Whether you’re in the room or following remotely be sure to interact with our live blog on facebook or twitter.
Update
On Thursday, the administration bargaining team and our team met for the seventh bargaining session. The administration team brought four proposals – one substantive and three housekeeping. We had four substantive proposals:
The conversation at the table was insulting and frustrating.
On January 30, we proposed that Career Instructors who had been promoted to Senior II could undergo a third intensive review to become Teaching Professors. Upon a successful review, our best Instructors would earn an indefinite appointment – a kind of “tenure lite.” When we presented the proposal, we stressed that we were seeking to recognize that there are Instructors on this campus who are masters of their profession, who have demonstrated excellence time and time again, and who have truly earned the long-term stability and academic freedom that comes with a permanent position (or at least not having to worry about contract renewals).
Thursday, we learned that the administration was rejecting this proposal. They did not have a counter proposal for us, nor did they engage in a conversation with us about why they were saying no to job security and academic freedom for our best instructors. The most they were willing to tell us is that they truly do value instructors, and they are working very hard in thinking of a way to recognize them, but at this point they were not prepared to discuss the issue. More on this below.
The administration team was, however, ready to discuss our system of classification and ranks on campus. It seems that when we proposed a position called Teaching Professor–a category that could include excellent, long-serving career instructors with and without PhDs, MFAs, and other terminal degrees–this upset someone in the administration. Apparently, only faculty with terminal degrees (which many career instructors across campus have) can be called “professor.” Or, so the administration is now, sort of, proposing.
The administration did not, however, fully follow through on their new principles. They proposed keeping the Professor of Practice rank, which does not require a terminal degree. The administration team explained that that rank was only for people who were amazingly successful in their field, so it was okay to call them “professor.” We pointed out that our proposed Teaching Professors were also amazing in their field, as we have written the proposed classification, but this argument was dismissed with a shrug. Under the administration’s proposal, someone could also be a Visiting Professor without a terminal degree.
In addition to striking our proposal for Teaching Professor, they proposed that Clinical Professors who teach be called now be called Clinical Instructors, while those who focus on research or clinical practice would be called Clinicians. The administration’s newfound desire to protect the word “professor” from degradation seems to mean that, while some faculty without terminal degrees are excellent enough for the title, our own career instructional and clinical faculty are not qualified for it.
The administration also proposed downgrading our tenured faculty who retire. While they have been unable to produce a response to our TRP/buyout proposal after six weeks, they did propose that all retired faculty have the same rights as Pro Tem faculty, which are minimal at best.. We asked them why faculty who retire cannot retain the rights they had before they retired or the rights of Career faculty. The administration explained to us that faculty who retire “quit” their jobs, so the administration needs to treat them as Pro Tem faculty so they don’t have to conduct a competitive search to hire them back. Apparently, the jobs of faculty who retire go away completely, and the administration needs to create new jobs if they want to hire a retired faculty member back. None of their explanations made sense to our team, despite repeated attempts to understand. In response to our questions, the administration was unable to say if any administrators who have quit have been hired back into their same positions.
The administration also proposed creating a new job classification – Postbaccalaureate Scholar. The Postbaccalaureate Scholar position would be a mentored research position of “limited duration” for people holding a bachelor’s degree or equivalent and above. They told us the intention was to create a position for people who have recently graduated with a bachelors and want experience working in a lab before deciding on their career options. They did, however, allow for the possibility that a holder of a master’s degree or PhD could be placed in the Postbaccalaureate Scholar classification. Upon questioning, we learned that “limited duration” of the position would maybe be two to three years, but could be for seven years or more. In fact, they weren’t able to tell us what they envisioned as the upper bounds of how long someone could be a Postbaccalaureate Scholar, nor was that proposed as contract language to protect future Postbaccalaureate Scholars, but they invited us to make a proposal to them.
It is difficult to convey how dismissive the administration team was of the idea that our most accomplished Career faculty should be allowed to earn indefinite job security after dedicating themselves to the mission of the university for at least twelve years and demonstrating their exceptional contributions through three intensive performance reviews (those are the conditions we proposed for the Teaching Professor classification). We had proposed that should layoffs become necessary, that Teaching Professors be laid off only in extreme cases, but before any tenured faculty were laid off. We were careful not to equate Teaching Professors with tenured faculty, we were careful to make sure that they were still classified as Career faculty with the same shared governance rights as Career faculty, and we did not propose paying them the same salary as tenured professors. When the administration struck the proposed classification Teaching Professor because now only people with terminal degrees can be called professor, we asked why they just didn’t come up with a different title. The administration team scoffed that they were not going to be giving Instructors tenure, as if the whole notion was ridiculous. We remarked that many distinguished institutions have had teaching professors for years to no detriment to their stature. (The effect on their professionally-credentialed administrators’ fragile egos is less clear.)
Our proposal for earning the rank Teaching Professor is in Sections 36-42 of Article 19. It was not a casual proposal, and it was shocking to our team how casually the whole proposal was dismissed. More importantly, it felt like the administration team was dismissing all of the Career Instructors and the work they do for our students. While the administration thinks about how they might one day propose something that recognizes Career Instructor labor, it is impossible to forget that the administration has repeatedly made statements disparaging the labor Career faculty do. Our Career Instructors make possible our ability to fulfill the educational mission of the university. They often do this vital work in poor conditions for low salaries. It is indescribably frustrating that the administration’s first substantive proposal to address the years of neglect our Career faculty have suffered is to make it clear that none of them should ever be called “professor,” and to casually dismiss providing them with real job security.
I agree that excellent teachers should have better or permanent job security at the UO, but the timing is really bad and just the wrong problem to tackle.
Right now, out-of-control OPE increases lead to NTTF lay-offs and FTE reductions on fixed-budget research grants. This should have taken the highest priority, because people are losing their jobs. Unchecked, the current OPE rates endanger the research enterprise of the UO.
UA has missed the mark by miles. Sorry.
Not so, Simplicius. From the Union’s bargaining proposal on “Research Support”
The Union made this proposal on Jan 19, the Administration has still not responded. Rough guess is that it would cut research OPE by at least 50%. See http://uauoregon.org/2020proposals/
For those of us following along in other departments, could someone walk us through what this change would mean and how it would help?
it would make it much cheaper to hire research faculty and support staff, because the amount you have to pay the university to cover the cost of their health and retirement benefits would go down. At the same time, those costs would go up for the athletic department and their coaches. The current rates are at https://brp.uoregon.edu/content/fy20-blended-ope-rates
Athletics currently pays 41.9%, on top of salary. The academic side pays 80.4% for 12 month research faculty, 52.9% for post-docs.
It looks like this basically comes down to the price of the health plan — this would add the (presumably lower risk) athletics staff to the (presumably higher risk) faculty/staff risk pool.
How did the administration decide what the different pools are in the first place, I wonder?
The BRP link is pretty self explanatory. All state employees are in the same PEBB risk pool for health ins. (Which costs UO as a whole big-time, as we learned during the GTFF negotiations.) The OPE rate for athletics is so low because it’s a percentage and the coach’s salaries are so damn high. I’m guessing the decision as to who is in what category for computing the OPE was in part designed to help the Ducks, and in part an attempt to increase UO’s F&A rate, which they are renegotiating with the feds now. That had some rather obvious but unintended consequences for the cost of hiring research faculty.
So isn’t this effectively another hidden subsidy from the academic side to athletics? And probably a pretty sizable one …
Thanks, I was not aware of that.
However, considering the urgency of the situation, I would have placed highest priority on this issue.
Am I reading this wrong, or is there just no COLA in this proposal?
The Western US CPI is increasing at about 3%. So think of it as a negative annual 3% COLA, with %1.65 merit.
Only 1.4 % merit, with a .25% slush fund.
Which they can even give to faculty outside the bargaining unit.
And will.
Still munching on the popcorn….
Let me get this straight, the union opened with a nonsensical first offer which included “free” childcare for all and now wonders why the university is giving a nonsensical offer?
This is bargaining in an adversarial environment like you have there at the “O.” Union shoots for the furthest reaches of the universe, university shoots for some low valleys on the plains and then you both complain about how unreasonable the other side is. You’ll meet somewhere near the top of an Oregon hill after you all have spread enough hate and ill will about each other you feel like rolling each other down said hill.
It is hard to believe this is an institution of higher learning considering what I’ve heard today – sounds like this process of control and consolidation continues.
We need a solid COLA. The equity pool is just a tax on merit. The merit pool just goes to the favorites of the heads and deans.
Hmm
let’s do this BS (Brad Shelton) math
Deadwood = 0%
Exceptionally meritorious = 0.25%
I suppose if you take the logs of that you will get more
dynamic range
This is fuckin’ pathetic, why would any possible future exceptionally meritorious individual consider employment here …
Since its inception, the union has done very little for TTF in terms of salaries, protections, benefits or anything else of importance. Although things were not great before the union, they have definitely gotten worse.
Please, do favor us with some specifics.
It would be a pleasure. I’ll publicly debate any union honcho including you Bill anytime, anywhere. Immediately after the union agrees to a decertification vote by the TTF only. I’ll throw you a softball: the union would have never been formed if the NTTF and the so-called research faculty (i.e., post-docs) were not included. See you at the debate!
I’m Bill Harbaugh. What’s your name? BTW, about 75% of the eligible TTF are card-carrying, dues-paying members of UAUO.
Both these statements can be true: “the union would have never been formed if the NTTF and the so-called research faculty (i.e., post-docs) were not included.” and “75% of the eligible TTF are card-carrying, dues-paying members of UAUO.” The structure of the union makes no sense, but once it exists you may as well take part and try to be heard.
This is a best response to the powers that be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lcUHQYhPTE
I checked, it’s SFW.
Take this with the usual ton of salt:
When the union first formed we were told that the State of Oregon defines “Faculty” as essentially anyone that teaches a class at a higher education and then used that definition to define a “Faculty Union”. This necessarily lumps TTF and NTTF in the same bucket and since, at the time, NTTF to TTF ratio was about 2 to 1 (yes it was, look it up, 2012) then a positive vote for the Union would have occurred if zero TTF voted for it. This is the lens that “long timer” is using (and others).
So I asked around to a few lawyer friends I have across the country about the voracity of this position: the answer that I usually got back was that this definition of “Faculty” is a possible interpretation but others are available.
For instance, if Faculty were defined as being able to be PI on federal grants, then that would be different.
I agree with long time in the sense that as a TTF PI, the union has done nothing to improve my ability to do research and to improve the research infrastructure around here. I imagine that most research heavy TTF do not believe the union has enhanced their overall abilities.
For my department – which is top 60 or so for research – the union is a selling point for new TTF hires. We tell them they can expect regular raises and decent promotion raises, and they like that. I’ve heard the same from faculty in other research oriented departments, including one that is probably UO’s top ranked. I’ve also heard several deans say similar things.
I don’t know about that. At least one recent candidate, who I informed about the unions proposals for salaries suggested to another assistant professor later.
“I’ve heard at UO the salaries start low, and fall behind.”
Given that the new assistant professor hired this year earn more than ALL of the assistant professors we’ve hired post unionization says the union raises are NOT keeping up with market for new professors. Like it or not, that’s what the numbers say.
for at least one discipline, that is.
From 2008 to 2018, UO average faculty pay as a percentage of comparators increased from 80 to 87% for full professors, 86 to 90% for associates, and 90 to 94% for assistants. This fits with the standard model of what unions do: counteract the employer’s local hiring monopsony. The university has to pay competitive wages to new hires, but after they’ve been here a few years faculty get locked in with houses, kids, spouses, and locally useful skills like knowing the best tree runs at Willamette Pass. The employer then keeps raises low. A union acts as the monopoly seller of labor and prevents that (successfully, in the case of UAUO). Ironically, or at least interestingly, UO would like to be able to promise new hires future raises, but they can’t do so credibly. Potential hires know that some new president could always come along and cut the excellence raises. So UAUO is doing the administration a favor, by providing the Administration with a credible commitment device for ensuring new hires will get their raises as they get promoted and reviewed. Yeah Union!
https://ir.uoregon.edu/salary_comparison
2008: https://ir.uoregon.edu/sites/ir1.uoregon.edu/files/Publics0809_by_SchoolRank.pdf
2018: https://ir.uoregon.edu/sites/ir1.uoregon.edu/files/UO_with_AAU_Publics_by_School_Rk_2018-19.pdf
Bill, you are correct: 75% of TTF are union members. However, how many TTF were able to opt out of joining the union and paying full dues or fair share when the union was formed in 2012? Answer? Only those with “supervisory” roles. The rest were forced to join the union and pay dues whether or not they wanted to because of the overwhelming NTTF vote in favor. The union certification vote was biased, skewed and unfair to TTF who have different expectations and roles at UO. Hold the vote today only among TTF and the vote will almost certainly be overwhelmingly against the union.
Another question: How many current union members know that they can opt out based on the June 27, 2018 Supreme Court Janus decision ( https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf)? Not many I bet.
Yet another question: Why didn’t UOUA tell its members about this decision and allow them to have an opt out option? Pray tell.
And by the way, the TTF in my department (one of the top 3 at the University based on national rankings) overwhelmingly believe the union has had short- and long-term negative effects at UO in general and on our ability to do our jobs as researchers.
Nathan, why not do a little google research before making an uninformed troll comment? https://www.google.com/search?q=janus+site%3Auauoregon.org&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS842US842&oq=janus+site%3Auauoregon.org&aqs=chrome..69i57.3131j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Nice try about the identity but wrong. Answer the questions.
Let me rephrase:
Has the Union been overall good for NTTF and job security and fairness?
Has the Union been overall good for teaching, improvements in teaching infrastructure and the like?
Has the Union been good for research and research heavy faculty in terms of improving their overall ability to do research?
Has the Union better achieved salary parity with respect to other institutions?
Better than the alternative world with no union.
By research world worked better before the Union than after; because of the Union it made it impossible for short term hires to do important technical stuff for some project, so that got outsourced with poorer results.
My teaching has always sucked, independent of the Union.
Unions rarely inspire the best and always protect the worst.
One of my main issues with faculty unions is that eventually the senate and the union become indistinguishable. Can’t get much done with both of them staring at each other wondering who is holding the baton.
Okay this is really a complete bullshit (BS; Brad Shelton) initial response from JH. The average faculty member has either barely stayed even with the West Coast Inflation rate (now fully documented) or has seen a reduction in real wages. For JH to come back with no COLA as a response , to me, is inhumane and shows just how disposable faculty are. While this may be a stupid-ass bargaining ploy on their part, for me, if there was ever a reason to strike, this is it. Are you reading this JH – look for someone looking like a dog in front of JH with a boombox (yeah old school) and Aretha belting out R E S P E C T
1.x % merit increases are an insult. The time and work given to divvying up micro portions of a percentage and aligning them with publications, grants, and so on is a waste of faculty time. Bob gets 1.1 and Sue gets 1.7 and poor Gene gets .08. But they are all losers–especially the overworked merit commttee slobs who have to do the work and take the flack. And then the Heads and Deans get their equipment out to make sure the sub-atomic particles are split in the right ways? How foolish is this?
Why not protect teaching and research time and just give a Real COLA. Stop the erosion. Stop the waste of time. And raise some money for real merit increases in the next round!
If the existence of the union has you in knots, you are free to ply your trade elsewhere.
that is my plan now based on the JH behavior.