Author Archives: uomatters

7/22/2020: Liveblog, usual disclaimer: my thoughts on what people are saying, trying to say, trying to be thinking, etc. Nothing is a quote unless in ” ” ‘s.

Matella: We’re OK with the all in employees idea, and a 15-35 window. (That’s a very low threshold. UO has already cut costs more than this.)

Brad Shelton: I realize my initial model was too complicated for some people to understand, so I’ve made it more like the tax code. Also, I updated a lot of information which I haven’t shared with you before now.

(Typo in second to last bullet – $185K should be $285K)

Caucus break.

3:58 They’re back.

Caucus break.

4:53: Admins want another 10 min to caucus.

5:00: Admins want another 15 min to caucus.

5:15: Admins want another 5 min to caucus.

5:20: They’re back. 

Took Brad awhile to turn his crank, but he’s got a new plan to protect the highest paid administrators:

Cecil: It would be helpful if you shared your data, as we shared the data we painfully scrapped from IR’s pdfs because UO won’t post machine readable files and Schill stopped reporting quarterly numbers.

Matella: OK, I think.

Cecil: What to do about TRP? High salary suggests high tax, low FTE suggests low tax. Keaton goes low, Brad goes high. Caucus til 5:45.

They’re back.

Cecil: We’re going to want to trim a little more off the top. We need Brad’s data.

Matella: We’ll get you his model. [Here’s hoping she means data, not model.]

Cecil: We’ve got the outlines of a deal, just need to hammer out parameters of the cuts. Can’t do that until you share Brad’s data.

Cecil: Hope we can get this done this week.

Continue reading →

The concept is simple: All faculty agree to take a progressive pay cut if the UO budget tanks, and in exchange the administration agrees to maintain career faculty employment. The details are going to take a while to work out. My impression is that both sides would like to get most of an agreement worked out tomorrow.

I’ll do some live-blogging, and/or you can watch it online. Registration for the session can be found here – as usual, upon registration you will receive a Zoom link via email.

Live-blog:

10:06: Sorry, I got a late start today. Can anyone post a recap?

10:19: They’re back.

Sounds like the admins want the pay cuts to start after the admin takes $10M in cuts. Union wants to start after $20M. Admin has give only the union only the sketchiest info on it’s expenditures and possible cuts.  No discussion of asking the Foundation for help.

11:05: Union brings in Keaton Miller (Economics) to explain the union’s proposal. Miller explains that, conservatively, we’re looking at a $23M reduction in costs for next year – given wage & hiring freeze, travel. To be even more conservative, lets use a $20M threshold (In reality, UO can use some reserves, unrestricted foundation money, etc.)

Miler now moves on to potential wage cuts. Starting with a model that’s just looking at non-funding contingent bargaining unit members. Accounts for OPE:

Total E&G expenditures (last year) were $553M – so faculty union pay and benefits are about 32% of E&G. Suppose we have a $30M shortfall. After the $20M hold harmless, union needs to come up with 32% of $10M or $3.2M. An example:

But suppose we need more from faculty – say $6.4M:

Now suppose UO wants to apply the faculty union model to all E&G salaries. Again we need to raise say $10M:

Matella: Will you share these models with us? Cecil: Of course. Matella: I’ll show them to my people. Can you say more about the high/medium/low progressivity? Sinclair: It’s a single parameter in Keaton’s model that we can bargain over.

Cecil: Will you share Brad’s models? Matella: Maybe in a small room with Brad? Cecil: Why not in public, here, after lunch?

Matella: It’s going to be hard for us to get the high earner people who will have to sign of on this to accept cuts over 20% for themselves. They’ve got big houses, fancy cars, private school tuition and wine cellars to maintain, after all.

Matella: Not sure I can get someone to explain our model today. I’ll try. Cecil: You’ve been working on your models for how long?

Cecil: We’d be interested in hearing more specifics about the willingness of these top admins/faculty to leave during a pandemic, over a one-year wage cut.

Matella*really* wants to cap pay cuts at 20% for the big earners.

Cecil: Maybe we should be talking about other ways the university could be saving money then. Use reserves, unrestricted gifts, tax athletic donations…

Matella wants to look at peer plans to show they aren’t very progressive, don’t have rates above 20% Cecil: You mean plans prepared by highly paid administrators at other universities, to protect their own salaries?

Break until 1PM … I quess til 2PM… they’re back.

Matella: Have people working on a response to Keaton’s plan – will take them a day or two. Also have responses on career employment questions. Willing to work out an expedited grievance process.

Long rambling attempt by Matella to dispute Miller’s $20M threshold. The admins want salary cuts to kick in a $15M – but they won’t explain why. Not a productive conversation. Is the admin going to explain their threshold, some day?

Break until 3:40

They’re back.

Agree to meet again this Wed at 3PM to give Brad time to massage numbers.

Sorry – will post synopsis of situation after dinner.

You can register to watch  here, and will then receive a Zoom link via email. Liveblog, usual disclaimer: my thoughts on what people are saying, trying to say, trying to be thinking, etc. Nothing is a quote unless in ” ” ‘s.

10:00: Sorry, I’m tuning in late, trying to catch up.

Matella: Suppose we have a $1M state cut and a $10M tuition shortfall (projected from fall enrollment) and a $10M trigger/threshold. Faculty would be responsible for 39% of the $1M.

A 15% drop is about a $50-60M loss. So it’s very possible we get to the proposed $25M threshold. Pay cuts are a temporary solution to this temporary loss.

A state budget cut, however, will be assumed to be permanent. Pay cuts are not appropriate for dealing with permanent losses – instead we’ll need to cut baseball, close law school and CoD, etc. But we’ll need pay cuts in the short term. Also, permanent enrollment cuts will mean we’ll need fewer faculty (and fewer AVPs?)

In response to a comment, from here: 

State lobbyist Libby Batlan predicts that this year there will be no cut to state funding, and explains that they are working to make sure UO gets its share of the CARES act etc.

State lobbyist Hans Bernhard explains that they’ve been working very hard to get state funding for more construction.

Bernhard: I know people won’t believe this, but “I cannot remember the last time I had a conversation about funding for Knight Campus or the Track and Field championships”. [Bit late for that, really, the legislature still feels burned, and we still look like a rich big-time sports party school.]

Cecil: So, the people lobbying for Oregon 22 are not paid out of UO or Foundation funds? Batlan: No.

Back to bargaining:

Cecil: Suppose we accept one-time pay cut in fall. Are you going to come back to us in spring and give us another ultimatum offer threatening the career faculty?

Matella: She’s talking, and may answer the question some day. …. Answer is yes, they might have to do that.

Matella: You’re just going to have to trust us if you want a deal. And no, we’re not going to agree to rules that will prevent us from pissing away the savings on sports events, or subsidizing the law school.

Sinclair: Trust you? He goes on to share a few thoughts:

Lunch break until 12:45

Meanwhile here’s UO Foundation CEO Paul Weinhold promising to use the full faith and credit of the Foundation’s $1 Billion endowment to support the university’s teaching and research mission during this crisis.

Just kidding, he’s promising IAAF Pres Lamine Diack he’ll use it to make good on any losses from the Track and Field championships:

Last month French prosecutors asked for a 4 year sentence for Diack on corruption charges.

1:05PM, Admin team is still caucusing.

1:24, they’re back. Cecil has some revised bullet points but he’s scrolling through them too fast to capture. Seems to be going well with Matella.

Union pulls back on plans for a buyout program to replace expensive, troublesome, deadwood TTF with younger, smarter, cheaper assistant profs:

Matella: Hmm, would like to get this done.

Matella: Today has been productive, helpful.

Cecil: Kumbaya, but verify.

Break until 3PM

3:25 – they’re back. Working on procedures to get specific language. Union e-team will work with admin’s on details of pay cut plan.

3:50 – that’s it. Back Tu at 9AM, getting closer to agreement.

You can register to watch  here, and will then receive a Zoom link via email. Liveblog, usual disclaimer: my thoughts on what people are saying, trying to say, trying to be thinking, etc. Nothing is a quote unless in ” ” ‘s.

Matella starts with the pay cut proposal. The administration’s proposed changes are in red:

So no agreement yet on how big a revenue cut is needed before the cuts could be triggered.

The administration wants to only be required to mitigate the first $10M of revenue reductions before going after faculty salaries. One obvious question is how much they’ve already saved through the hiring freeze, salary freeze, CARES funding, job-share, early retirements, etc. Probably well over $10M. So would they need to make additional cuts, to say the bloated GC budget, before going after faculty pay?

After $35M is saved from pay & benefit reductions (over all employees paid from E&G fund) no additional pay cuts. Since (very roughly) about $500M of E&G is for pay and benefits, this would cap pay cuts at an average of about 5%. Is this right?

Long discussion of Foundation money ensues. Foundation boss Paul Weinhold has already expressed his willingness to use the Foundation’s $1B endowment to guarantee track and field championships – but would he do it for mere academic matters?

Above gives flexibility in assigning replacement work to the career faculty whose jobs would be saved.

Discussion moves on to layoffs:

Matella pitches this “functions and skills” language as a way to protect diversity hires without getting in trouble with SCOTUS rulings. I’m not sure if this is genuine or an attempt to give more administrative flexibility about using layoffs to get rid of particular faculty. Cecil goes after Matella on this vague language.

This new admin language at the bottom in red would appear to give the administration the ability to lower career instructors FTE *despite* the pay cut proposal. Strange, I thought the whole deal was pay cuts in exchange for job security. 

Matella now says that the admin doesn’t want pay cuts over 20% for high paid faculty and admins because it’s too disruptive to their lives. Cecil points out that the admin wants the ability to make larger than 20% reductions to career instructor FTE – that’s not disruptive?

Caucus until 11:15, 11:20 they’re back:

Complaint process. Speaking of complaints Matella is scrolling through this really slowly. Can’t she just share the doc? Speaking of sharing where are all of Brad’s “models” that the admin was going to share?

In the end everything is still up to the provost – i.e. Angela Wilhelms. Rules below provide no real protection, and Cecil gets Matella to admit:

Bottom line, the UO administration has blown through reserves on things like the law school, athletic subsidies, athlete villages, admin bloat. The pandemic made those mistakes clear and serious. Now they want the faculty, OAs, and staff to bail them out, without giving up their power to make similar mistakes in the future, and without promising any job security.

Cecil: So you want the union to agree to replace a neutral arbitrator with the provost? Matella: I think this will be better for the faculty. Honestly. That’s what they pay me to say. Cecil: Unlikely we’ll accept. Matella: I expect to be bargaining for a long time. 

TRP:

Matella: Brad’s got his own retirement worked out pretty nicely, but still hasn’t done his homework on the TRP and buyouts for others, so we just have some general shit to throw out:

Cecil’s recap before lunch break: Seems like we started in April with the idea of using wage cuts to get job security. But this morning we heard from you that you want to retain the ability to cut career instructors.

Matella: We have always wanted to use temporary wage cuts to respond to immediate crises, instead of layoffs. But yes – we want to be able to respond to long term changes with layoffs for career instructors. We’re looking at 4-5 years of temporary enrollment decreases.

Cecil: Let me walk you through your optimal strategy regarding layoffs, were we to accept this proposal. … So, how about we agree to no FTE cuts unless we have actual enrollment decreases? In other words – make you cut somewhere besides career faculty?

Matella: No. Can we break for lunch?

Back at 1PM

Whalen: UO has great faculty at all ranks, TTF and Career. We’ve made many sacrifices for UO and our students during the pandemic. We are really worried about all the faculty, and at the moment in particular worried about the 225 career faculty facing 0.5 FTE cuts.

Boscha: For those of us investing our lives and careers at UO, what is the administration going to do to protect us, rather than treat us as budget flexibility?

Urbancic: Read the UO mission statement. Career faculty are integral to fulfilling it. University needs to respect that. We’re willing to talk about shared sacrifices – but you don’t want to share, you want to put all the risk on the career faculty.

Matella: I’m confused. With the pay cut plan we were trying to move in your direction, limiting the window. This would mean less sacrifice. I thought I was moving toward an agreement.

Cecil: What we thought we heard this morning from you was smaller wage cuts for one year, but with the possibility of permanent decreases to career FTE.

Woodruff-Borden:  We already have the power to cut FTE. We’re in no way additionally devaluing career faculty work with this new proposal. We’re simply struggling to find strategies to navigate through this.

Cecil: You said this morning you only wanted pay cuts to last 1 year because then “good faculty” will leave. You’ve taken fundraising off the table. You don’t want to talk about other ways to save money. So how is this shared? You’re putting it all on the career faculty.

Long discussion about committee on legitimate reasons, including a neutral third party, to replace arbitration.

Lots more back and forth. Sorry I’m not doing a good job blogging it.

Caucus til 2:35

They’re back. Cecil proposes meeting again Thursday at 9AM to go over newly discovered middle ground. Matella agrees. See you then.

From https://mailchi.mp/uauoregon/summer-bargaining-so-far?e=b103ce406c, all posted below:

United Academics and the administration reconvened last week to discuss potential salary cuts, the restoration of fall FTE for affected Career faculty, and a plan for expectation of continuing employment for all Career faculty.

The bargaining conversations have begun with each side presenting and discussing the principles that inform their thinking on the issues we’re bargaining. Our primary goals are to restore FTE for those who were renewed with low FTE in the spring and to institute an expectation of continued employment that would eliminate the administration’s ability to dramatically change career faculty FTE year to year. We have also been working to establish a fair threshold for a salary cut plan. While we agree with the administration that a salary cut might be a necessary part of addressing a major budget crisis, we maintain that employee wage cuts cannot be the only means of addressing difficulties.

We have made some progress on how to address both the expectation of continued employment and wage cuts. Both parties agree that FTE should be restored, although there is a remaining disagreement about whether all FTE be restored or whether the administration can still renew with lower FTE if cuts were planned “pre-COVID.” In addition, we have agreed that Career faculty who opted to pull their promotion case because of the threat of a lower FTE contract can choose to reinitiate the promotion process and have their promotion review finalized this summer.

Pay Cuts

United Academics recognizes that the university may not be in a position to meet all of its financial obligations due to changes in enrollment and state appropriations caused by COVID. We have agreed that in order for the university to continue to meet its instructional and research missions it may be necessary for faculty to take temporary pay cuts.

Still, questions remain: What is the scale of those cuts? How will any savings be used? What are the triggers for cuts? How are those cuts distributed across the university?

Both teams have been working toward answers to these questions, but our basic principle has been that the administration must look to use other resources before they ask employees for wage cuts. They have generally agreed with this principle, proposing that the administration be responsible for any deficit up to $10M and for all deficits over $35M, meaning that employees would need to take wage cuts to account for the remaining $25M. Of that $25M, the administration has tentatively estimated that cuts to bargaining unit faculty salaries would amount to $7.8M.

We have suggested that faculty would be more comfortable with a higher threshold, arguing that the savings the administration has derived through the hiring freeze, the salary freeze, and savings on travel will amount to more than $10M. We have suggested that a threshold of $25M and a cap of $50M seems more fair.

One of the main challenges in the conversation is the uncertainty we all face. It is very difficult to predict how deep the deficits we face will be. We have agreed that employee salary cuts will be used to cover deficits caused by tuition revenue decline this year and cuts to the state subsidy next year. Both sides seem to agree a two-year wage cut package is appropriate, but neither of us has a very good idea of how deep the cuts will go. Obviously, the administration would like a lower threshold before faculty salary cuts are triggered, hoping for smaller deficits that don’t reach the cap. We also hope for small deficits, wanting the threshold to be higher, hoping not to reach it at all.

When we do have an agreement on the triggers for the salary cuts and how much they might be, United Academics will have a progressive pay cut plan for the amount we will be facing developed by our Economics Team (E-Team). Although we have just begun discussing what kind of plan might be appropriate, we have agreed to work together to come up with a final model. We plan to share our E-Team’s model broadly. Suffice it to say it is a very standard “tax” plan with marginal tax rates that increase with income. It has been crafted to be progressive, to exempt as many lower-wage faculty as possible, and to minimize discontinuities in contributions (so that similar salaries are affected similarly).

Continuing Employment for Career Faculty

United Academics believes that the administration should abide by the collective bargaining agreement and that the 3-year contracts earned by promoted Career faculty should be real contracts that represent a commitment to those faculty. The administration, on the other hand, believes that it is proper to provide Career faculty with a contract where they guarantee full-time work for one year and then only 0.1 FTE in subsequent years. In most cases, the work in the out-years of a 3-year contract will still exist, and these contracts represent an administrator’s desire to feel better looking at future budget projections, as opposed to an assessment of the actual needs of the institution.

Our goal in negotiating expectation of continuing employment is to stop the administration from using Career faculty who happen to be up for renewal as flexibility to deal with temporary fluctuations in either enrollment or money, and thus to stop the administration from punishing faculty for their inability to plan for future enrollment needs or accumulate sufficient reserves.

Our current proposal is a system by which Career faculty cannot have their FTE reduced by more than 0.1 FTE in a given year, and in such a situation that FTE would be restored for the next academic year. Faculty could still be terminated for performance reasons or for academic or programmatic changes, but they could not have their FTE reduced slowly until they were out of a career. In the event of academic or programmatic reorganization that might eliminate the need for a position, we propose a committee that can verify the rationale for those possible position cuts.

The other part of this proposal would be a force majeure clause which would allow the university more flexibility in the event of a declared emergency. We are working through the details of what sorts of additional leeway they should have in such cases and what mechanisms will be put in place to keep such a system from being abused. Stay tuned for more information on this front!

Come to Bargaining

While we are making progress, we are still far apart on some issues. The more faculty are logging into our Zoom sessions, listening in, and providing feedback to our team, the stronger our position. Your participation shows the administration that the faculty are paying attention and sweeping changes will not come easily. Not for nothing, it buoys the Bargaining Team to see high numbers of participants in our Zoom session! Some faculty who have been attending the sessions report that it is the best time they have had in their lives. Others have lived more adventurous lives, but still report the conversations to be fascinating. Everyone agrees that you can have the conversation on in the background while you get other work done.

Bargaining sessions typically run several hours, so please feel free to “attend” for as little or as much as your schedule allows. You can register here, and will then receive a Zoom link via email. Please note that while all sessions are listed as a default 9am-5pm, the actual meeting times will vary – we’ll keep the UA bargaining page updated with that schedule.