Tag Archives: goat

UO faculty salaries $20K below AAU averages, whilst senior admins cash in

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The bargaining for a new faculty union contract starts in January. UO’s IR department has just released the data from the AAU Data Exchange on UO faculty salaries, pasted below. Full data, by department, here. I’ve added a spreadsheet showing the salary and comparators for our Johnson Hall administrators below that. (Note that the figure and table use different comparator groups, and also that UO is now using all AAU publics rather than the OUS 8 as the comparator. I’m sorry for the lack of NTTF and GTF data, but the AAU doesn’t care enough about you to collect it in any reliable fashion.)

I don’t know if UO’s reported faculty salaries include the 2013-14 union negotiated ATB and Merit raises, or Tim Gleason’s $350 goat. But UO clearly is way behind Richard Lariviere’s plan to get UO faculty to the AAU averages – by fall 2014. (Note that Lariviere was talking about the 8 OUS comparators, not all AAU publics as UO is now using, but this does not matter much to the conclusions.) Meanwhile Jamie Moffitt’s reserves continue to grow. Lariviere’s plan is here, as described in his 2011 letter to Pernsteiner:

Screen Shot 2014-09-19 at 10.39.32 AM

It ain’t happening:

Screen Shot 2014-09-18 at 11.19.35 PM

But Johnson Hall is doing more than fine:

Screen Shot 2014-09-18 at 11.59.29 PM

Time series for the faculty?

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Oregon State faculty to vote to unionize?

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Maybe, maybe not. President Ed Ray was a little smarter than Berdahl and Gottfredson. Instead of paying Sharon Rudnick $1M to fight with his faculty, he gave them a big round of raises last year. And today he announced he’s brought in the goats. Fishwrapper sends a link to the awesome time lapse-video of them clearing noxious weeds from campus:

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The rumor from the UO Faculty Club’s newly air-conditioned Lariviere Smoking Lounge is that UO Trustees plan to set this crew loose in Johnson Hall any day now.

Union delivers the goat! But check your pay-stub for raises.

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11/25/13: UO’s Payroll Office just sent around an email reminding everyone that the 1.1% dues/FS deductions start with this paycheck (If you are wondering why the dues and fair share deductions are the same for now, read point 2, here.):

From: BAO Payroll Office News
Subject: payroll: United Academics Union Dues and Fair Share Deductions on Nov 30th Paycheck

The United Academics Union has authorized the university to deduct the dues and fair share on a monthly basis from the paycheck of Union members. The dues and fair share rate is 1.1 percent of the monthly salary. The deductions were included on the November 30, 2013 paycheck, and are retroactive to the ratification date (October 8, 2013) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

Since these are retroactive to the contract ratification date of 10/9/13 they are actually 1.92%, for this month only. This deduction is on the pay-stub at the bottom, under “United Academics”. The goat is sacred: the union is not deducting dues/FS from it or from the retroactive payments described below.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that the email from the administration doesn’t mention the raises the union negotiated, or the status of their implementation by UO. My advice is log on to Duckweb and check your pay-stub yourself. Go to Employee information, pay information, earnings statement, display, then click on Nov 27. Here’s my very unofficial rundown. Fact-checks are welcome in the comments:

  1. If you were on the payroll as of 10/8/2013, you should get the $350 goat money.
  2. If you were hired on or before 6/30/2012 you should get the goat, a 1.5% ATB raise (The 2013 FY ATB raise) and a catch-up payment for the 1.5%, back to 1/1/2013 in this paycheck. That catch-up payment should be a healthy 10.5% of your (old) monthly pay. In January the administration will add the 2014 1.5% ATB and your merit raise from a 2% pool (you are meritorious, right?) to your pay. These are retroactive to 7/1/2013, so there will also be another significant catch-up payment in January – on average, 15.75% of your (new) monthly pay. In July 2014 you’ll get another 1.5% ATB and be eligible for a 3.5% merit pool and a 1.5% equity pool. 
  3. If you were hired between 7/1/2012 and 12/31/2012, you get the goat but won’t get any ATB in this paycheck. But in January you should get the 2014 ATB and your merit raises, and a catch-up payment for these, back to 7/1/2013. In July 2014 you’ll get another 1.5% ATB and be eligible for a 3.5% merit pool and a 1.5% equity pool.
  4. If you were hired after 12/31/2012 and on or before 12/31/2013, in July 2014 you’ll get another 1.5% ATB and be eligible for the 3.5% merit pool and the 1.5% equity pool.

NTTF’s: All the above applies, except instead of the equity pool and raise for 7/1/2014, there will be a pool for salary floors. Details are still being worked out.

 Research faculty: I think discussions about how to handle raises for grant funded faculty are still under way. 

TRP: If you are on the TRP you will probably get the goat this month, but not the 1.5% raise or catch-up payment. The administration should have paid these, but didn’t. The union is working to fix this.

Summer money and 12 month faculty: If you are on 9 months, but got summer pay, the catch-up payment will not reflect that. The union is still working this out with the administration. I don’t know what happened if you are on a 12 month appointment.

As I said, this is all unofficial. The administration is still working on implementation, and I advise patience if your pay is not correct. But it’s a good idea to check your pay-stub!

And remember, the union worked hard to get more money for merit and equity than the administration was willing to provide. It seems that someone had sucked the well dry. Negotiations for the July 2015 contract will start in the middle of the next rainy season, in 14 months or so.

Update: Looks like the union bargaining team took Sharon Rudnick and Tim Gleason for a ride – the going price on craigslist is only $70 – albeit for a castrated dwarf:

http://eugene.craigslist.org/search/?sort=rel&areaID=94&subAreaID=&query=goat&catAbb=sss

Where’s the goat?

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11/4/2013 goat update: “Other professional services.” You gotta love OSU. From their Oregon Transparency expenditure report:

11/3/13: UO Goat Wranglers report – raises and retroactive payments will be in the Nov and Jan paychecks: (from the admin fact-check site):

Implementing the salary provisions of the contract is one of the highest priorities. There are four components to the FY2013 and FY2014 salary package for eligible bargaining unit members:

Across the board increases (retroactive to FY2013 and current for FY2014)
Merit increases
Increases upon promotion
One-time $350 bonus

While it may seem like it would be easy to implement across-the-board and one-time bonuses, there are several steps that need to take place to ensure that this is done accurately. Initial spreadsheets must be created that individually identify every employee, their start date and FTE, whether they are eligible for the increase, and the impact of the increase on their total base pay. These spreadsheets are created centrally, then sent to schools, colleges and other participating units for review.

Following that review Unclassified Personnel Services, in collaboration with Academic Affairs, conducts a final review for accuracy before the information is sent to payroll. Payroll must then enter the information into the payroll system, calculate retroactive back-pay, and process end-of-month paychecks. In case any company fails to maintain an updated payroll, they might have a hard time when it comes to filing tax documents. Keeping track of things like tax-resolution-services-payroll-tax-problems etc., at timely intervals, would do good in the long run, and might even help businesses stay away from the unnecessary complications. At this time, however, we believe we can get the FY2013 1.5 percent across-the-board increase (retroactive to Jan 1, 2013) and the one-time bonus in paychecks at the end of November.

Implementing the FY2014 merit increases presents an even more challenging timeline if we are going to meet our current goal of completing the process in time for the January 31, 2014 payroll. The University [sic] and the Union have agreed to an abbreviated merit criteria review process, pursuant to which each department and unit must provide an opportunity for faculty to review the criteria they will utilize for the FY2014 merit increase and to provide feedback, which may be solicited at a faculty meeting to which all faculty are invited. The department and other unit heads, deans, and the provost must give serious consideration to that feedback in determining the merit review process and increases.

Notes about the salary increases:

(1) The contract includes another 3.5 percent merit pool for FY15. Prior to implementing that increase, all schools, colleges and other participating units will be required to review their merit salary increase policies.
(2) The pools for FY2014 and FY2015 merit raises for tenured and tenure-track faculty will be separate from the pools for non-tenure-track faculty.
(3) The merit salary review process in each year will include all of the years since the last merit review prior to the ratification of the CBA.
(4) Salary increases for funding-contingent positions, which are primarily grant-funded positions, present special challenges when the grants did not anticipate increased compensation expenses. The University and the Union will be exploring best strategies to address these circumstances.

11/1/2013: The $350 Goat Bonus was missing from yesterday’s paycheck. I’m no agricultural economist, but it’s a supply problem. Lane County’s goat population is only 3716. Giving a goat to every one of UO’s 1900 bargaining unit members would severely deplete the breeding stock. It’s bad enough that “the well is dry”. We can’t afford to let the goats go barren too. Word is that UO has hired a crack team of goat wranglers to bring a herd up from more fecund regions of Texas. Should be here by the end of the month, if the coyotes don’t get them.

Law school profs file complaint over the number of the beast

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10/29/13: You thought it was a little petty for the UO administration to buy off the faculty union with $350 in goat money? The Cleveland State law school decided to give the union organizers there $666 raises. The union has filed a compliant: “In effect Dean Boise has called AAUP’s organizers and AAUP Satan.” Dean Boise denies any satanic intent, blaming the number on division. No word on who got the missing 66 cents. The Volokh Conspiracy has the details.

OA’s to get 5% raises in July 2014

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But not the retroactive 2012 and 2013 raises the faculty union negotiated. This just ain’t right, everyone deserves a goat! 

10/12/13 update: A reader points out that the OAs got the goat back in October, back when Gottfredson’s lawyers Randy Geller and Sharon Rudnick were claiming he couldn’t give the faculty raises during union bargaining.

10/10/13: UO has 1200 OAs. About 400 of them are supervisors who can’t unionize. Word is that many of the other 800 are interested in unionizing, perhaps by joining UAUO. Job security is apparently concern #1. Comments on this are welcome, but maybe best to do it from your cell phone or home, as a new rumor has it that Geller is monitoring staff and OA web access to UO Matters.

October 10, 2013 
To: Officers of Administration 
From: UO President Michael Gottfredson 
Subject: Updates for Officers of Administration 
The University of Oregon and United Academics reached a tentative agreement on a first-time collective bargaining agreement, which was ratified on Tuesday. In addition, University of Oregon classified employees recently negotiated compensation increases with OUS. These agreements provide for compensation and benefit increases for our faculty and classified staff through FY2015. It is important that we also recognize the hard work of over 1200 Officers of Administration, who provide invaluable support and are critical to the success of the university and our students. 
To that end, the University plans to implement the same base FY15 salary increase package for Officers of Administration that is planned for represented and unrepresented faculty (1.5% COLA and 3.5% merit pool). Also, beginning in July 2014, subject to approval by our new Board of Trustees, the university intends to implement two new benefits for all unrepresented faculty and Officers of Administration: new paid family leave program and reduced tuition for a second child enrolled in a UO undergraduate program. 
Today Jamie Moffitt, Vice President for Finance and Administration and CFO, will be joining a meeting with the OA Council to talk about the university’s commitment to all employees, including OAs. 
Thank you for all that you do at the University of Oregon. You represent the highest level of accomplishment and innovation in your field and are critical to our mission of advancing our status as one of our nation’s premier public research institutions. 
[Con Rispetto], 
Michael Gottfredson, President

Faculty union contract vote, Tu October 8

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10/2/2013: Updated announcement with links. 

I apologize but we do not have a budget or dues rate yet. Nothing nefarious, I’m traveling and the OC is busy with the contract and classes etc. Hard to arrange a meeting time to approve everything. I’d post the draft but I’m just one of many involved in this, so that would be presumptuous.

An email sent to bargaining unit members about the 10/8 meeting:

Colleagues,
Next Tuesday’s General Membership Meeting and Contract Ratification Vote are rapidly approaching!  Please mark your calendars and make time to ratify our Tentative Agreement with the UO Administration.
Many of you have written-in asking about the schedule for 10/8.  Here is the agenda for next Tuesday:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ERB MEMORIAL UNION BALLROOM, 6PM-9PM
5PM doors open for member check-in–voting begins
6PM–meeting convenes–Chief negotiators present the contract
6:30PM–Q & A with the bargaining team
7:30PM–Finance committee presents local budget and dues proposal to membership
8:00PM–Q & A with the finance committee
9:00PM – Meeting and Voting Conclude
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The contract ratification vote will continue until 9PM–ballots will be counted at the end of the meeting and results will be announced via email.
The contract summary, the budget, and the dues proposal will be available at the meeting.

Members do not have to stay for the entire meeting.  You may come, vote, and leave at any time during the meeting.  However, we encourage everyone to attend the entire presentation and participate in the discussion.

9/20/2013: Union to use Treetops for contract ratification meeting?

That’s the rumor from the profs playing darts down at the Faculty Club tonight. Hard to think of a more appropriate location, really. Pernsteiner was evicted a few months ago, and if the celebratory goat roast gets out of control – god forbid – the cops will have a hard time figuring out who’s the landlord and enforcing the Social Host Ordinance. Meeting is set for the evening of October 8, details later. 

Bargaining XLI: Union strikes deal with "The University"

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Breaking news: Union Takes the Goat

  • Faculty get average 12% raises (all in place by July 1, 2014, 10 months from now) 
  • $350 goat signing bonus (pro-rated by FTE)
  • Increases in sabbatical and promotion raises
  • Admins agree to leave Senate COI/COC (consulting) rules in place
  • Admins agree old IP policy stays unless union agrees to changes
  • Admins can’t snoop into email without rules, notification
  • Admins agree to a free speech policy that gives faculty the de facto (but not explicit) right to criticize UO policies and actions
  • Admins agree to serious new NTTF protections
  • President Gottfredson gets to call himself “The University” (of Nike, or of Oregon?)
  • Noted tobacco company litigator Sharon Rudnick and her consultants walk off with a cool $1M in student tuition, and she avoids a restraining order barring her from campus
My personal take on the raises: 

 These ~12% raises are substantial. About half will be in our paychecks when the contract is signed, the rest in July 2014. However these raises are not enough to get average UO salaries by rank and department to the levels of our comparators, as Lariviere intended to do by fall 2014. More on this later, but some info on what that will take is here. Obviously it is still the goal of the union to do this. Bargaining for the next contract’s raises, to start in summer 2015, will begin in January or so of 2015.

The union argued for more merit and equity money (which can be used to reward faculty in more productive/competitive departments). Gottfredson’s team fought against this to the bitter end, and won a pyrrhic victory on this point.

I suppose one possibility is that the administration would have given the faculty more money if we hadn’t unionized, but they are such bitter and petty people that instead they decided to punish us for our effrontery. If this is true, someone – not me – might argue unionization was a mistake.

Another possibility is that getting UO faculty pay to our comparators is simply not “job #1” for President Gottfredson, who has many other priorities. His initial offer – 1.5% retroactive for 2/3 of year 0, then 1.5% ATB and 2% for merit in year 1 – was a sincere best offer reflecting those priorities. The union team got us that, plus a bit more than he wanted to pay in year 2, plus sabbatical and promotion raises, etc. And a goat.

My view is that there’s more truth to the latter possibility. I’d remind everyone that getting these raises out of the administration took months of struggle and hard work by the faculty volunteers on the bargaining team, and the AAUP’s Mike Mauer and the AFT’s David Cecil. 

They did this in the face of determined resistance from the UO administration, including repeated refusals by VPFA Jamie Moffitt to provide basic data on UO’s financial picture and forecasts. President Gottfredson’s lawyer Randy Geller and Sharon Rudnick pulled a variety of cheap stunts, such as threatening to sabotage faculty consulting work, take away existing rights to intellectual property, and repeal the UO Senate’s free speech and academic freedom policies. 

I don’t think those tools are going to work for our administrators next time. 

Ratification vote scheduled for 10/8, details to come.

9/18/2013: Bargaining now, Wednesday, 10AM to ?, Room 101 Knight Library. Free Coffee.

Thursday’s session was quite the party, bring your colleagues.

9/16/2013 update: The free speech fight between President Gottfredson and his faculty has gone global. Colleen Flaherty at Inside Higher Ed broke the story on Thursday, then CUNY’s Corey Robin posted his take on his blog and on the popular Crooked Timber (tagline: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made). He included a call to faculty worldwide to write President Gottfredson about this nastiness, and from the emails I’ve seen, they certainly have. The pro academic freedom Foundation for Individual Rights in Education blogged about it here, and Betsy Hammond of the Oregonian has a related story here. The latest updates on the admins anti free speech and academic freedom proposals are here. The language our administrators can’t live with?

“All University employees retain the right to address any matter of institutional policy or action without fear of institutional discipline or restraint.” 

The administration’s bizarre “open letter” accusing me of being anti-university is here. I don’t get a lot of visitors from Saudi Arabia, but I can understand why they’d be interested in this issue. Still nothing from North Korea though.

For Wednesday, items still on the table include salary, consulting, IP, free speech and NTTF contracts. The rumor from the crew planning the inaugural Faculty Club Goat Roast is that Scott Coltrane will be at the bargaining session, to answer your questions about his Sunday RG Op-Ed:

Bargaining should be a family friendly event this time. President Gottfredson’s lead negotiator Sharon Rudnick just received a prestigious international award for her work defending Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds from frivolous lawsuits filed by the families of their deceased customers, and should be in a happier than usual frame of mind. By our count Rudnick hasn’t threatened or grabbed any faculty since the 8/29 session, though someone might want to get a fact-check on that from Barbara Altmann at Monday’s head’s retreat.

PDFs of proposals submitted 9/12/2013 here.

Disclaimer: My respectful opinion of what people said, or were thinking but were too decent or well-paid to say. Nothing is a quote unless in quotes. If you don’t like my blog read Luebke’s.

Live Blog:

10:04: ~20 faculty so far. Free coffee and juice. Admin team includes Altmann, Blandy, Rudnick, Gleason and Grado. Waiting for the faculty side to come back for caucus.
10:21: They’re all here.

Art 14, appeals, admin counter. Rudnick didn’t bring enough copies for the crowd.

Rudnick: We won’t let union get involved in picking the promotion appeals committee. Provost’s call. (Problem is that it’s all insiders.)

Mauer: How about faculty nominate, provosts confirms?

Rudnick: We’d need to caucus.

Art 25, Termination w/o Cause, Admin counter.

Rudnick: We’re willing to agree no declaration of exigency and terminations w/o cause, because Jamie is so flush with liquid reserves. The well is full.

Lots of coffee over there too folks, have some courtesy of UO Matters.

Rudnick: The last termination of an NTTF was 1991, and there has apparently never been a termination of a tenured professor, though that Harbaugh guy is pushing the line.

Art 7, union counter on Academic Freedom, Free Speech.

 The union counter includes explicit protection for the freedom “to engage in internal criticism, and to participate in public debate”. Also “The University Administration encourages and supports open, vigorous, and challenging debate …”

 Mauer: We didn’t expect the administration to have such a problem with free speech. We appreciate that you finally backed off last week, after getting shredded in the press.

Rudnick and Altmann: Why did you take out the “con rispetto” part. Mauer: Whoops, you can put it back. (Big mistake, IMHO. This is way weaker than the April Senate policy Margie Paris wrote.)

 10:47, Caucus break. So here’s some appropriate music: http://caucascapades.wordpress.com/

~40 faculty sitting here on the group W bench, having a great time talking about our special crimes.

11:53: They’re back

 Mauer: Counter on Art 14, Appeal of tenure or promotion. We “At least one of the members shall be appointed from a list of nominees …” Rudnick: List of 3? Mauer: more than 1. Rudnick: 2.5. Mauer: at least 2. Rudnick: Deal.

Art 25, Termination w/o cause, union counter.

Mauer: Appreciate pledge not to declare financial exigency, want protections for other reasons for terminations. Adequate notice, demonstrable financial need, “legitimate academic need”.

AEI:

Cecil: We may wrap up bargaining today. For us, moving forward is difficult given what’s happening at AEI. 3-4 colleagues are not being renewed for reasons we don’t understand.

We want to let you know that why we are probably going to move off the Art 9 protections, but we hope we can find a way to bring these problems up in the future. If we can’t get you to agree with us on this, we at least hope that can get you to understand this issue. One of the AEI members moved to Eugene 5 years ago, got cancer, and is now being let go.

Rudnick: We hear you, we have met with AEI and we will continue to work with you on these issues. We have agreed to your language requiring explanations for terminations, and we will implement this for these terminations as a matter of professional respect.

12:11. Lunch break til 1:30.

1:41, the admins are back.

Rudnick: Art 25, somthing about NTTF extensions to one-year, Geller’s Ok with it.

Mauer: On overhead transparency, you have our proposal, counter?

Rudnick: We have heard the concerns about Kimberly Espy, we will facilitate a meeting with her, the union, and appropriate faculty.

Article 9, contracts:

Mauer: We understand you are not willing to commit to an expectation of continued employment. Our compromise language deals with length of contracts, library,

Rudnick: How about “shall have 3 year contracts”? Mauer: OK. Rudnick, we’ll need to caucus at next break.

 Art 49, computers and information assets, union counter.

Mauer: 2.c. Admin must notify union if they take away email or network access.
Sec 7: Sticking point was “reasonable expectation of privacy” words which Geller gagged on. This language creates this expectation, without making Geller cry.  Requires admins to notify union in a timely manner if they start snooping around.

1:56 Rudnick to Gleason: “Are you OK Tim?” Caucus break so the admins can check.

2:10: They’re back, OK with the Art 9 contracts.

MAUER: We have a 3 part package. On the money, faculty are shamefully underpaid relative to peers, UO has the funds to fix this. But we recognize you have moved, acknowledged that UO has problems. It’s not enough, but you have made movement from your initial 5.5% take it or leave it to ~12%.

 So, we could accept your last proposal, IF: You stop over-reaching on the IP. We want you to sign a formal MOU on this, establishing a committee and maintaining the status quo in the meantime. On consulting, you guys are insane. We propose you drop the whole thing and go back to the current Senate policy. Deal?

 2:17 PM. Rudnick: We’re going to caucus.

 2:30 They’re back, Rudnick takes the deal, says Gottfredson will too.

 Salary:

Post-review raises worth 1/3 of a goat

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9/5/2013: President Gottfredson has a nice full professor’s salary to fall back, just in case his president gig at $540K doesn’t work out. His $360K fallback is about 250% of the AAU public average for sociology full professors:
The rest of UO’s full professors are currently at 82% of the AAU public average. His latest salary proposal included a modest increase in the post-review raises for full professors How modest?
Here’s the bottom line: Gleason’s $350 goat bonuses will deliver about $420,000 in new money to the faculty. In comparison, over the two year contract, the post-review raises are worth about $147,000 – barely enough to buy 1/3 of a goat.

For comparison: Interim Provost Scott Coltrane’s office is budgeting $2.2M for the coming year to pay for the athlete-only Jock Box tutoring operations. This is a $300,000 increase over last year:

The full roll out of the post-review raises will take 7 years, at which point they will still only cost about 1/3 of the Jock Box subsidies.

The details: Assume there are 240 UO full professors in the union and that this is a steady-state.

Under the current and new plans, 1/6 of them come up for a sixth year post-tenure review every year. That’s 40 per year. Assume these reviews are 6 years after promotion, or 18 years into a 30 year career, so that they will receive their post-review raises for 12 more years. This means that in any given year 2/3 of the full professors, or 180, are receiving these raises. Assume that 3/4 of the full professors reviewed merit the highest raise.

Under current policy this is worth $4,000, the rest get a $2,000 raise. The total steady-state cost in salary to UO of this policy is therefore =0.75*4000*180+0.25*2000*180 or $630,000 a year.

Salary for a UO full professor currently averages $112,700. Assume that for those up for review it is $120,000. President Gottfredson’s latest bargaining proposal changes the pay supplement for the highest merit evaluation from $4000 to 8% of salary, and 4% for the rest. The total steady-state new policy therefore costs 0.75*120000*0.08*180+0.25*120000*0.04*180 or $1,512,000
So, in steady-state, the incremental salary in this offer is $882,000 per year, about the same as a 1.5% average raise for all TTF’s. 
But here’s the kicker: These new pay increases do not take effect until after the review, or year two of the contract. And after that there is a 6 year phase in, as full professors come up for their reviews. So the incremental salary from this policy, for the 2 years of this contract, is $0 + $882,000/6, or $147,000.
On the other hand there’s the $350 goat signing bonus: This is prorated by FTE. Assume there are 1200 FTE equivalents in the faculty union. $350*1200 = $420,000.

These post-review calculations ignore the compounding effect of later wages, and their effect on the post-tenure raises, but given the compression at UO this is a small effect for now. And for that matter, if you go in with colleagues and buy 2 goats you get milk every year, and a much more rapid compounding growth effect too, so long as you get a billy and a nan.

UO Matters harms public discourse about union bargaining

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9/5/2013: At the Tuesday bargaining session I publicly ridiculed Journalism Tim Gleason, VP for Academic Affairs Doug Blandy, and former tobacco attorney, now lead administration negotiator Sharon Rudnick and their proposal to give every faculty member $350 as a contract signing bonus. I said this was enough money to buy a goat:

My efforts to mock this serious proposal from UO’s administrative bargaining team were disrespectful of their tireless and selfless efforts on behalf of their UO faculty, and I would like to extend a personal …. Nope, sorry, I can’t do it Tim.

What is disrespectful here, and destructive of any potential for serious civil discourse, or faculty trust in you and the administration, is the UO administration’s continued efforts to claim there is no money for faculty raises, and that we should believe their claims even though they refuse to show the faculty even the most basic information about UO’s actual financial situation:

Bargaining XXXVII: Rudnick wrap-up

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Page down for live-blog, 9/3/2013. Next session Friday, I think 9AM – 4PM. Be there.

 Wrap-up:

UO’s faculty union bargaining team has played President Gottfredson’s lead negotiator Sharon Rudnick like a screechy fiddle. She has insisted since March that there was no more money, beyond her initial 10.5% offer. The union has now forced her to raise it by significantly more than the 1.25% that dues will cost.

We’re not yet up to 14.5%, but the AAUP and AFT can take this on the road – deservedly – as proof that a faculty union at a research university can raise faculty salaries by more than enough to cover dues, even in the face of a determined if misguided president.

Along the way the faculty team has written the missing UO faculty handbook, which our accreditors have been telling the administration to do since 2007. They’ve secured many important protections for NTTF’s. And while Rudnick started the bargaining by threatening that it could take as long as 18 months, the union team has played her out in double-time: not even 8 months so far.
The unfortunate collateral damage from Ms Rudnick’s incompetence is President Gottfredson’s standing with the faculty. He could have proposed 14.5% in January and taken the credit, instead of the blame, and saved at least $500K in legal bills.


Today’s synopsis:

  • Over the past 5 months the union has made big economic concessions on wages, from 18.5% to 14.5%. Admin proposals stalled at 10.5% (No compounding).
  • Today we learn that Gottfredson will budge. A little. His offer is still well below Lariviere/Coltrane proposal from 2011.
  • For NTTF’s, the union proposal from last week was for 15.03%, compounded over three years. Admin came back today with 12.4%.
  • For TTF’s, union had last proposed 15%. Admin came back with 11.8%, plus a problematic increase in first post-tenure review raise amounts. This doesn’t address external equity, the focus of the Coltrane plan. And if you just had a review, you’re SOL for 5 years.
  • Admin still refuses to make 1.5% ATB for last year fully retroactive – even though AAU salaries increased 3% last year. 
  • Instead they propose a $350 “signing bonus”. Don’t laugh, you can get some good shit on craiglist for $350. I call dibs on the goat.
  • Who came up with this $350 idea? Presumably Gottfredson’s $20K a month anti-union consultants down in SF, trying to drive a wedge between the TTF’s and NTTF’s.
  • After hearing Rudnick the faculty start leaving the room, presumably to start looking for outside offers.
  • Rudnick says Gottfredson says UO can’t afford more, because of the 3.5% tuition raise cap for next year. 
  • Not true. Every 1% increase in tuition brings in ~$3M, recurring, while a 1% increase in faculty pay costs ~$1M, or a 0.33% tuition increase.
  • Admin team is even more on edge than usual but only one outburst, this time from Gleason.

Raises: The elevator version:

We’re going down. During the first year of President Gottfredson’s administration UO faculty pay has fallen still further behind other AAU public universities:

  • Full profs: down from 85% to 82% 
  • Associate profs: down from 92% to 90% 
  • Assistant profs: down from 93% to 89%

The relative drops are mostly driven by pay raises at the other AAU schools, however UO’s average pay for assistants and fulls has actually fallen, presumably because of composition changes. The retroactive 1.5% ATB raise proposed by the admin’s for 2012-13 is only for 6 months, so it’s really only a 1% raise. Sneaky. Either way it is not close to enough to make up for the ~3% UO faculty lost relative to other AAU publics between Fall 2011 and Fall 2012. Much less enough to get the elevator going up. And the administration has been fibbing: UO benefits don’t make up salary gap.

Background:

Their conclusion is that while both effects are at work, Bowen effects dominate in public research universities, with $2 in increases due to administrators seizing on increased revenue for every $1 in increases due to upward pressures on faculty and staff salaries from other industries. Same for private research institutions. What’s more, they find a plausible culprit within universities. They notice that cost increases are likelier when the ratio of staff to faculty is higher. That suggests that when administrators within the university accumulate bargaining power, they’re better able to force increases in costs. The administrative staff, they suggest, is what’s really driving this.

By administrative staff, they presumably mean central administrators like Jim “38%” Bean. Say Jim, any update on how much our administration is going to piss away in Portland this year? Thanks to an anonymous reader for the link. From the WaPo’s excellent “The Tuition is Too Damn High” series.

Lots of rumors flying around – and I didn’t start all of them – that the administration’s haste to wrap up bargaining is motivated in part by a desire to get the economics off the table before the latest administrative bloat data comes out:

From: Bill Harbaugh
Subject: public records request, non-classified employees
Date: September 1, 2013 11:55:21 PM PDT
To: Lisa Thornton Cc: J P Monroe , [email protected], Andrea Larson , [email protected], [email protected]

Dear Ms Thornton:

This is a public records request for a machine readable file in excel, comma delimited, or any other standard format showing the following information for UO non-classified employees as of 9/3/2013:

First Name, Last Name, MI, University Email Address, University Office Address, University Office Phone Area Code, University Office Phone Number, Employee Type, Academic Title, Job Type, Job Title Job Start Date, Yrs in Position, Fac Prim Activity, Home Department, Rank, Rk Date, Pay Department, Annual Salary Rate, Appt Percent Job Status, Job End Date, Appointment Status, Term of Service, EEO Type, FT/PT

I ask for a fee waiver on the basis of public interest.

I’m ccing a few people in the UO IR office, who should be able to easily provide these data.

The prior data on this is from the error ridden Beangrams, and the most excellent presentations of the AAUP’s Howard Bunsis. March 2013 update for UO here:

“Institutional Support” means central administration, more or less.

More background:

 Rumor from the spectators at the annual faculty club ping-pong semi-finals is that Gottfredson has told Geller and Rudnick to stop their $100K a month billing frenzy and cut a deal, quick. The large faculty turnout at the Thursday meeting had its intended effect, and Rudnick’s flip-out didn’t hurt either.

Rudnick will apparently meet with Gottfredson et al at 9AM to get his instructions. As you can see from the spreadsheet below the union has already come down from 19.3% over 3 years (compounded) to 15%, and has made concessions on health, childcare, and promotion raises as well. The majority of the faculty I’ve talked with feel that if the union offer is not acceptable to Gottfredson as is, we should strike during week one.

 Synopsis from session XXXVI, Thursday 8/29:

  • Practice drill for strike goes off well. ~100 faculty show up on a summer day when they’re not even on contract. News on the SEIU strike preparation in the ODE here.
  • Some chatter about discipline for Rudnick over her disrespectful treatment of faculty and library staff this morning. Does UO’s respectful workplace policy apply to $300 an hour lawyers? 
  • Union holds firm on raises, only minor concessions. Rudnick seems to have new instructions from Coltrane, sounds ready to deal.
  • After lunch, still about 60 faculty in the room. No visible support for the admin team. No Altmann, no Moffitt, no Geller, no one with any actual authority to deal. No wonder this takes forever.
  • After getting all medieval on me for “posting of false and inaccurate information about bargaining” the administration’s bargaining team is now trying to keep me from posting copies of the presumably fact-based transcripts they’ve been taking at every bargaining session – their stenographer has been typing away all day. Latest here. 
  • Art 49, use of UO computers, a.k.a as the Stasi Clause. They own you.

Your Guarantee of Truthiness: All UO Matters bargaining posts are fact-checked by Geller and Rudnick’s secret team of well paid consultants, who post their spin on the official UO Admin site, here. If you pay Dave Hubin $285.98 he’ll even tell you who wrote it.

Proposals so far:




Live Blog:

 Disclaimer: My opinion of what people said or were thinking but were too decent, or well-paid, to say. Nothing is a quote unless in quotes. If you don’t like my blog read Luebke’s.

12:55: Admin team filing in. ~50 faculty, kids, etc. Approaching fire code limit. Any volunteers to move Rudnick’s chair?

 1:05 Rudnick: Thanks for delay, we have economic proposals and more propaganda about how we already spent your money on athletics and pet admin projects.

Art 24 Leaves, admin counter:

 Rudnick: Go forth and multiply. We’ll give dual family leaves if both parents are UO employees. Admin relents on Ebenezeer clause: Officers of instruction can now leave for xmas and spring break without getting pay docked.

Art 31 Release time, admin counter:

Rudnick: Union gets 2.5 FTE for officers, extra 2.0 FTE for bargaining, and can buy course releases based on salary, OPE, admin costs, facilities use.

Mauer: Why not charge us the replacement cost? Rudnick: It’s not replacement cost. Mauer: Why not? Rudnick: blah, blah. (She’s an expert on bill padding issues, be careful here Mike.)

Art 20, Salary, admin counter:

 See the spreadsheet, admin proposal is very weak.

Caucus break. Union team leaves. 

 Admin’s and ~50 faculty stay. I start giving a thoughtful, fact-based discussion of the admin proposal, using the spreadsheet above, with a few illustrative examples such as:

Proposal: $350 one time signing bonus. This goes over like a lead brick. Jim Bean’s been getting $775 a month for his beamer payments:

Rudnick interrupts, saying I’ve got something wrong, but won’t answer when I ask her for details. Faculty start ripping into the admin proposal, asking her questions. She won’t answer them either.

 Union team returns, tells Rudnick we’re moving this to Room 101. We do. Session restarts:

Gleason: While you were in caucus, the people in the bargaining room, including your economic consultant (me) were ridiculing this proposal. This is unacceptable, and I’m a journalism dean so I know all about that so called free-speech stuff.

Mauer: So, you want to talk about it? (I’m right there Tim. Why not send me another harassing fact check letter?)

Gleason: No.

Rudnick: Long bit about $350 being an attempt to split off the NTTF’s and divide and conquer. Gives a bit more to the lower classes. She tries to explain her math, Cecil finds a few errors.

Rudnick: No changes to your merit proposal. We cut your equity proposal for NTTF’s because of something the finance people said. Then she adds “Don’t ask me any details” and “It’s all in the details.” (Why didn’t Jamie Moffitt show up for this crucial bargaining session? Because the administration doesn’t have enough respect for the faculty to make the trip over from JH).

Cecil: 2% is not enough to get NTTF’s to $36K floor.

Rudnick: We think it is enough. But it’s all in the details and don’t ask me any details.

Promotion raises:

Rudnick: We accept the union’s 8% promotion raises for NTTFs. Currently there is no policy for this, so it’s a significant increase.

Rudnick: For CAS, post tenure review typically gets $2k or $4K, we’ll boost that to 4% or 8% in order to give more equity and merit. (Note, however, that this is only for the *first* post-tenure review after the contract is signed. Among the many problems with this proposal is its hit or miss nature: had an excellent review last year? You will wait 5 years to try again for your raise.)

Rudnick: Here’s our spreadsheet, with cost increases, estimates promotion and post tenure review increases will result in $3.5M or so in new costs. Pratt: So, these are just for first post-tenure reviews? Rudnick: Yes, because …. Pratt finishes for her: Because that would increase faculty salaries.

Why isn’t our $270K a year (plus football junkets) VPFA Jamie Moffitt here to explain this proposal?

Rudnick: This is a significant proposal. We worked very hard to try to put some significant extra money on the table. There was a very long discussion in JH this AM on how to fund this. (Uh, cut athletic subsidies and drop the $2.4M Portland White Stag lease, for starters?)

Rudnick: We hope you see this as meeting you in the middle. Oh yeah, we didn’t have time to do the compounding, check UO Matters.

Mauer: Back to floors. Pool is 2%. You don’t know if that’s enough to get NTTF’s all to $36K?

Rudnick: We’re looking at different groups individually and looking at other possible permutations on how to fairly set floors. They’ve run a bunch of scenarios. Their sense is it’s enough to get to a fair outcome.

Mauer: What if there’s money leftover? Rudnick: We’d spend it on beamers for the administration.

Braun: Can we see your scenarios? Rudnick: Starts waiving her hands, it’s back of the envelope, … It’s just somebody in accounting doing if this and that.

Braun: But it did inform your proposal? Cecil: I’ve seen assertions that admin is saying it would be unreasonable to pay RA’s $36k?

Rudnick: UO research grants are falling, less than came in last year, might lead to layoffs. Rudnick starts passing around her spreadsheet, with costs, talking about it. She shortchanged us on copies, I’ll post as soon as I get one. She babbles on.

Pissed off looking faculty start leaving the room, making calls for outside offers. 

Rudnick: Post-tenure reviews will be reviewed outside the department, by Gottfredson, before you get the 8%.

Retirement: Rudnick asks union for ideas on how to deal with the pickup. Uh, they did that already, Sharon.

In conclusion:

Rudnick: President and Provost are putting themselves on the line for this proposal. It will take reorganization, re-prioritization, maybe even cuts or postponement of hiring of new strategic communicators and brand manager hires. She was just kidding on that last part, I’m sure.

Caucus break. 

Cecil stays, gives the ~40 or so remaining faculty an impressive off the top of his head talk on bargaining, dissecting the admin proposal, comparing it with what the union is asking for.

They’re back. 6 die hard faculty observers left.

 Contracts: Snoozer. And no, it’s not because it’s about the NTTF’s, it’s because Cecil and Mauer are on this. Just kick back folks, they have your back.

Wait – Blandy is going to reduce the amount of notice and pay they need to give NTTF’s. Current policy is too expensive. So, are you going to do the same for administrators, Doug?

7/31/2013: Back in July 2011 UO got in trouble with the State auditors for post-dating Frohnmayer’s retirement contracts and no bothering to specify what work he’d done for the money. Then Bean got in trouble with Davis for hiring his buddy John Moseley for an extended post-retirement gig without bothering to write a contract. Davis had to write another retroactive one while Bean was on sabbatical, and she chewed out Bean for it. Then in April 2013 Gottfredson announced Bean would “return to the faculty effective 7/1/2013” And now Bean is working for UO without a contract – if he’s still working for UO that is. From the UO Public Records Office yesterday: 

The university does not possess documents responsive to your request for “a copy of the current employment contract(s) for James C. Bean“.  The office considers this information to be fully responsive to your request, and will now close your matter.  Thank you for contacting the office with your request. 

My April 2012 request for docs on the unusual deals between Bean and Moseley, including the retroactive contract and Davis email, was quickly followed by Bob Berdahl’s clampdown on public records releases, which has continued under President Gottfredson. I did get the response above without having to pay a fee, but it took 11 days. 

Long back and forth between Cecil and Rudnick on job security, raises for NTTFs. Not a word from VPAA Doug Blandy, who is supposedly in charge of all this. Bizarre.

Q: Do all UO departments give NTTF’s the opportunity for career-track jobs?

Rudnick: Pres wants the flexibility to replace NTTF’s with TTF’s.

Cecil: So, if we come back with a proposal that says you can cut for that, but no other reasons, will you agree to it?

Rudnick: Seems to be saying no.

Next session this Friday – not sure if it starts at 9AM or 10AM.