Bargaining started in February. The union put out a 3-year plan to get UO salaries from 86% of the average of our AAU Public comparators to 100% – a publicly stated goal of UO administrators going back to Pres Richard Lariviere and Provost Jim Bean.
President Scholz’s bargaining team countered with the offer of 3 years of 3% raises – not even enough to make up for recent inflation, much less move us up from the bottom of the AAU, PAC-12, Big-10, etc. Scholz’s bargaining team justified this by arguing they did not have the money – meaning they had other priorities for spending their ~$1 billion budget. The union responded by proposing they just get faculty salaries up to the level of Johnson Hall’s senior academic administrators – who are paying themselves 99% of the AAU average, plus bennies such as Provost Long’s $130K startup and alcohol budget.
The administration responded by refusing to increase their 3-for-3 offer. They did however switch their logic from “we don’t have the money” to “you are already overpaid” – arguing the cost of UO’s benefit package was high enough, and the cost of living in Eugene low enough, that in terms of total compensation faculty are already at 98.3% of the AAU average. I expect the union will disagree with the assumptions behind this number.
Here’s the union’s statement asking faculty to show up to hear their union’s response:
Our Fight for Fair Salaries
Your bargaining team meets with administration again this week on Thursday, September 26th, from 12:30 to 3:30pm. Please note that we will gather in Lillis 112 – right down the hall from the room we typically meet in.
We will present several articles, including Article 26: Salary. We have poured over the data underpinning the administration’s most recent proposal and have developed our counterproposal based on, and in response to their data. We anticipate a robust conversation about compensation during the session. We will also present our counterproposals on review processes for tenure-related and Career faculty.
Come to bargaining for as long as possible. If we are to avoid a future job action (such as a strike), it is imperative that faculty show up and remain engaged in bargaining throughout the coming term.
Can someone tell them it is “pore over”?
So are all the admins overpaid then by their own analysis?
Also although enrollment is going up, are they picking insane out of state enrollment targets to claim they have no money?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/tuition-increases-loom-at-university-of-oregon-as-out-of-state-enrollment-misses-target/ar-AA1rcsib?ocid=BingNewsVerp
You nailed it.
Zoom link for bargaining at 12:30 today (9/26) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81254557403?pwd=Nkh2L1ptaDhpRmlvdWNaaXYxaHcxQT09
Professor Miller’s salary presentation: https://www.uauoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-09-26-article-26-flourishing.pdf
Keaton Miller is doing an awesome job explaining the background behind the union’s salary proposal. Apparently the room is packed – Zoom in if you can, or there’s also an overflow room.
Bottom line, the union has now come down from 9.4% to 8.5%, based in part on the administration’s own logic. It will be interesting to hear how President Scholz’s team responds.
No questions, no response from the administration’s team. Wow.
There’s one part where union falls apart. They want to get to average salaries and then do merit? So effectively they want our below average employees to make the average of the AAU peers as if other AAU peers don’t have bigger salary variance than us?
No, the merit raise is part of the overall package amount. The goal is to get the average UO faculty to the level of the average AAU public comparator.