UAUO report on Session III:
Bargaining got down to brass tacks on Thursday last week, as both teams began negotiating over the proposals each party had presented during the first two sessions. The two teams were able to work through ten proposals and reach tentative agreement on three. Most of these were relatively minor, “housekeeping” items and the atmosphere remained, for the most part, convivial. There were a few sharper exchanges toward the end of Thursday’s session, however, when the administration unveiled their proposal for Summer Session.
For a fuller description of last Thursday’s session, please see our latest bargaining update. For your convenience, United Academics has posted every proposal and counter-proposal at our website, uauoregon.org.
The next session will be at the Ford Alumni Center on Thursday, February 26, when United Academics will present its proposals on salaries and merit increases. We hope you will make every effort to attend. Your presence makes a big impression!
Save the date!
Please join us on Friday, February 27, for a talk by Christopher Newfield, “The Price of Privatization: Some Effects of a Failed Strategy and How to Stop It,” EMU Maple Room, 12:00 noon-1:30 pm.
General Membership Meeting, March 3, 5:00 pm
Finally, mark your calendars for the United Academics’ General Membership Meeting on March 3, in Gerlinger Lounge, 5:00 pm-7:00 pm. The agenda will include reports from United Academics’ bargaining team and from union officers on finances, communications and organizing, and state legislation on higher education.
For live-blogging of Session III, try the UAUO Facebook page, here.
If you’re nostalgic, the Blandy/Gleason/Altmann “fact check” blog is here.
Session III: Thursday Feb 12, 10-2 library. Be there.
Duck Advocate Tobin Klinger seems to have nothing to say about Session II. He must have been busy spinning those $5M raises and bonuses for athletics.
Here’s the report from UAUO’s very Strategic Negotiator David Cecil:
Collective bargaining continued last Thursday, February 5. This time it was the administration’s turn to present its proposals: modifications to seventeen existing articles in the CBA, plus one new article. Most of the administration’s proposals are housekeeping—changes in the CBA’s language to reflect new circumstances, clarifications of terms, and the like. It is likely that many, if not most of these proposals will prove to be uncontroversial. There were, however, a few proposals that would bring unwelcome changes to the campus.
The administration started their presentation by laying out the principles driving their proposals. They were (paraphrased), 1) respect and fair treatment for all faculty with respect given to institutional decision making, 2) live within our means, while advancing student learning at all levels, 3) preserving unit flexibility to hit necessary staffing levels with all employee types, and 4) flexibility for sponsored research projects. These principles contrast with our principles of equity, stability, transparency and voice.
In keeping with their chosen principles, the administration proposed changes to Article 16 (“Contracts”) that would allow the administration to reduce a Career NTT faculty member’s FTE if their classes do not enroll enough students. Currently, the administration cannot reduce the FTE of a Career NTTF. The administration’s new Article 47 would introduce new terms to regulate salary increases for funding-contingent faculty. The proposal would also deny funding-contingent faculty access to professional development funds and opportunities for sabbatical.
Since Thursday our bargaining team has been studying the administration’s proposals and will return to the table on, February 12, to begin resolving differences between the two sides. As in the first and second weeks, the bargaining session will convene at 10:00 a.m. in the Knight Library Collaboration Center. All faculty are invited to attend this and all bargaining sessions. If you cannot make it for the full four hours, please feel free to drop in when you can.
‘… 4) flexibility for sponsored research projects.’
Sponsored research projects = the research funding on this campus that makes it an R1 institution, and employs hundreds of graduate students and staff, and some postdoctoral researchers, and is contingent on exceedingly competitive grants and contracts that are outside of the University’s budget and subject to Federal laws and regulations that are uniform across the country. Please, please consider some flexibility so that we can keep it going here.