Last updated on 03/15/2024
Full proposal here.
From earlier in the session:
At 12:30 in 125 Chiles or at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81254557403?pwd=Nkh2L1ptaDhpRmlvdWNaaXYxaHcxQT09#success, more bargaining info here.
Here’s the language in the current CBA that Pres Scholz wants to remove:
Section 2. In the event of a strike by other employees of the university, bargaining unit faculty members, if requested by the University, will consult about how work which was previously performed by a striking employee will be covered. Any work previously performed by a striking employee assigned to a bargaining unit faculty member shall be considered an overload assignment. Bargaining unit faculty members will not unreasonably refuse to perform such work.
The existing language is pretty mild. Removing it would allow the Admins to unreasonably require faculty to take over the work of striking GE’s or janitors, without consultation or compensation. Why the fuck would any sensible university president want this power?
The administration made a misstep by pushing scab language and release time take-backs in their first offerings at the table. They could have come with solutions to problems that faculty care about, but they decided to waste a bunch of faculty and administrator time by bringing articles that 1) do not improve the working conditions of faculty, 2) have no chance of being accepted and 3) have pissed off every union on campus.
The forced-scab language was (perhaps) predictable given the averted GTFF strike, but the release-time take-backs were predicated on obviously erroneous information that inflated the cost of course releases by an order of magnitude. If the information shared at the table was instead published in a reputable journal the whole admin bargaining team would be hauled in front of the IRB for data falsification.
So, if we want bargaining to proceed smoothly and amicably I have some tips for the admin bargaining team:
1) Bring articles that solve problems, not create problems.
2) Recognize that you are on a unionized campus and act accordingly.
3) Don’t bring fake data to justify your arguments.
4) Everyone on the team should read everything that is going to be presented before coming to the table so you can catch the stupid stuff before you have to say it out loud at the table.
5) Pay us competitive wages: if admin can’t afford for us to be an AAU university, then we won’t continue to be one for very long.
12:32: Cheerful, well-paid Administrative team files in, without their economist. I’m guessing this means they’re not going to have anything substantive to say about salaries.
12:40: Admin team seems pretty unprepared for some obvious, basic Q’s from UAUO about what to do about teaching during snow-storms.
12:50: Art 36. Scholz wants to stop faculty from using ASA money if they’re out on leave. Deb Greene asks if they really want lab mice to starve. Karen Ford hadn’t thought about that, unwilling to answer on the fly.
Apparently the Admin’s *will* respond to Keaton Miller”s (Econ) pay proposal today. They know that the economist on the Admin team, Bruce McGough (Econ, now in CAS Admin) can’t talk about the Admin’s proposal without giggling, so they’ve brought in $206K Associate Vice President BFADA [sic] Brian Fox to present it.
1:17 Admin’s still haven’t shared a copy of their salary proposal, but Fox is going to talk about it now.
1:20 Looks like Fox is going to present the usual Jamie Moffitt story about how bad UO’s financial situation is. Nothing new so far.
Yup, he’s already blaming Measure 5 and prisons. That’s getting a little old.
Listening to bargaining I’m struck that the admin team is only trying to solve *their* problems. There seems to be no interest in bringing proposals that actually improve the ability of faculty to do their job. Their proposals are all about making it easier for administrator’s to do *their* jobs.
Last I checked the measure of institutional excellence is not the ease at which administrators can do their jobs. Maybe admin should return the focus of bargaining to where it really matters: supporting the faculty whose labor actually contributes to institutional excellence.
Now Fox is on to how much the HECC gives to OIT, OSU, etc. This talk about how the well is dry is basically the same one Jamie Moffitt gave to UAUO ten years ago – before she suddenly found the money to pay for a round of pretty big raises.
I’ve got a friend who used to be a VPFA at a public university, she explained to me that half her job was figuring out how to hide money from the state legislature so they could plead poverty during the budget cycle.
Fox throws in the economies of scale argument, claiming UO is too small to efficiently amortize the cost of its administrators. By this argument the share of the budget going to administration should have fallen over the last 20 years, as enrollment grew. I don’t think that’s what the data shows.
1:44 – Fox is now explaining that Rob Mullens and Duck sports have failed to bring the out-of-state students that he and Phil Knight had promised.
Interesting Chronicle article here on how universities hide financial info: https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-it-can-be-so-difficult-to-gauge-a-colleges-financial-health
Wrapping up, the university has limited revenue and many expenses, so the easiest path to excellence is to underpay the faculty.
Fox: We’re going to have a small deficit this year. Strangely, he doesn’t mention that the E&G ending reserves are predicted to be $111M.
2:00 – Fox wraps up, 15 min break. Admin’s will come back with their response to UAUO’s proposal to pay us the average, which they’ve hid from the UAUO team so far.
Strikes are no fun. They are sometimes necessary though.
Solidarity
I am still not clear about one thing: why would anyone want to leave the marvel that is the UO to go live on an island? Makes no sense to me…
When you are older, my uncle says, one may come to realize that one’s life may have different stages. Retiring to the island is not necessarily to turn one’s back on what has come before.
Surely they are offering the faculty as good a deal as they settled for with the GEs.
Remember how great the union was going to be?