Agreement reached!

[Note: sorry this is late getting posted. Your blogger was out of town and off the grid immediately following the announcement.]

Your collective bargaining team met with the administration at 2:00 PM on Friday the 9^th of September. In a marathon 16-hour negotiating session, PSU-AAUP and the PSU Administration reached a Tentative Agreement (TA) on the 2009-2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement. We signed the paperwork at 4:30 AM on Saturday, 12 September.

Reflecting the country’s unusual economic circumstances, this agreement comes much earlier in the year than it has in the past. If we had not settled when we did, the administration seemed fully prepared to let the 2007-2009 CBA expire, declare impasse, and move as quickly as possible to impose cuts up to the 4.6% level. We made a number of gains through the package proposal phase of bargaining, and we felt that we had much to lose by delaying.

Thanks to the Collective Bargaining team

Many thanks to Jeff Alworth, David Hansen, Bob Liebman, Ron Narode, and Andrea Ogston (the members of the collective bargaining team) and to Phil Lesch for their hard work and commitment over the past 6 months as we met in caucus and with the administration to reach this agreement. The months of August and September have been especially busy and intense.

Highlights of the tentative agreement

Article 30: Salary and Retirement / Letter of Agreement on Salary Reductions for Academic Years 2009-2011

PSU faces financial difficulties in conjunction with the national and state economic crises. The university will take a 13% cut in state appropriations, representing a $20 million reduction. In the event of passage of ballot measures to rescind tax increases, further budget reductions are estimated at $2.1 million. PSU is retaining an emergency fund to cover this contingency. In addition, the Oregon University System has required PSU to set aside $ 2 million in reserves in the face of reduced Federal funding when the economic stimulus package ends. In response to these extraordinary circumstances, PSU-AAUP has agreed to accept salary reductions for our bargaining unit. These reductions will be applied equally across the employees work year and represent a number of mandatory unpaid days off, or leave days, as discussed below.

Snap-back: The text of the salary article remains unchanged from that in the 2007-2009 CBA. The language about salary cuts is contained in a Letter of Agreement that expires at the end of the 2009-2011 CBA. Salary levels in the 2007-2009 CBA will form the basis of bargaining for the 2011-2013 CBA.

No retroactive cuts: Salary cuts will begin on November 1, 2009 and will NOT be imposed retroactively.

Leave days: Number of leave days is rounded up to the next whole number. The first five leave days received in exchange for salary reductions will be used to cover University Closure periods. (People receiving less than 5 leave days will NOT need to use vacation days to cover the closure.) Remaining leave days may be scheduled and coordinated at the unit level, but must not disrupt class schedules.

Proration: Cuts and leave days will be prorated according to FTE.

Special conditions apply to sabbatical leaves and members with visa status considerations.

Salary reopener: By March 31, 2010, if either PSU-AAUP or the University feels that the University’s financial circumstances have changed significantly, then the Salary reduction LOA can be re-negotiated. Otherwise the LOA provisions will continue through the 2010-2011 academic year.

University salary savings: For the 2009-2010 year, cuts from our unit amount to $1.6 million in savings for the university. The aggregate cut for the 2009-2010 year is 2% due to the delay in implementation; a full year of implementation would have provided $2 million, or a 2.6% cut.

Individual salary cuts will be graduated according to the tables below.

For 12-month employees at 1.0 FTE (assuming a full year of implementation):

Annual Pay @ 1.0 FTE	Minimum Number of Leave Days per fiscal yr	% Impact on Salary
<$30,000	3 days	1.15%
≥$30,000 and <$50,000	4.2 days	1.62%
≥$50,000 and <$70,000	5.4 days	2.08%
≥$70,000 and <$90,000	6.6 days	2.54%
≥$90,000 and <$110k	7.8 days	3.00%
≥$110k and <$130k	9 days	3.46%
≥$130k and <$150k	10.2 days	3.92%
≥$150,000	11.4 days	4.38%

For 9-month employees at 1.0 FTE (assuming a full year of implementation):

Annual Pay @ 1.0 FTE	Minimum Number of Leave Days per academic year	% Impact on Salary
<$24,590	2.19 days	1.15%
≥$24,590 and <$40,984	3.07 days	1.62%
≥$40,984 and <$57,377	3.95 days	2.08%
≥$57,377 and <$73,770	4.82 days	2.54%
≥$73,770 and <$90,164	5.70 days	3.00%
≥$90,164 and <$106,557	6.58 days	3.46%
≥$106,557 and <$122,951	7.45 days	3.92%
≥$122,951	8.33 days	4.38%

Article 11: Release Time

PSU agreed to fund three additional course releases each academic year. This doubles the university-paid release time available to the union. With this time, we are better able to recruit people for important jobs, including doing financial research for the salary reopener.

Article 14: Promotion and Tenure

The article was revised to include reference to a document on the promotion of research faculty recently passed by the Faculty Senate.

Article 17: Academic Professional Faculty

This article was revised to incorporate text about flexible work schedules and the application of wage and hour law that was included in Letter of Agreement #2 in the previous contract.

Article 18: Fixed-Term Instructional and Research Faculty

• The entire article was rewritten for clarity. Many thanks to the Fixed-Term Faculty Task Force for their efforts on this front!
• Grant-funded research faculty members may receive contracts that run the length of the grant (up to 3 years), as allowable by OARs and OUS policy, with presidential approval.
• The university agrees to place a minimum of 45% of fixed-term faculty with seniority on multi-year contracts. (The percentage was 30% in the prior CBA.)

Article 20: Intellectual Property/Distance Education

Revisions to this article clarify ownership of intellectual property in our academic context. In particular, the article clarifies that governance and ownership of intellectual property rights and responsibilities do not change as a result of the medium of delivery or storage (e.g., on-line, electronic media). Many thanks to the Intellectual Property Task Force for their efforts on this front!

Article 24: Working Conditions

The revised article includes reference to PSU’s Professional Standards of Conduct policy.

Article 28: Resolution of Disputes

New language addresses the university’s obligations under ‘resort to other procedures’ conditions, and discusses the authority of the arbitrator in nondiscrimination cases.

Article 31: Insurance

We retain our fully paid health insurance through PEBB for another two years. PSU will pay for premium increases of up to 5% in plan years 2010 and 2011. If rate increases exceed 5%, we will petition PEBB to use reserve funds to cover the difference. Bargaining unit members will not be asked to cover increases in insurance costs.

Letter of Agreement: Workload Task Force

The Workload Task Force will continue. Participants will discuss matters concerning workload and with move these discussions forward into appropriate campus venues, including faculty senate and CAE. If you are interested in joining this task force, please contact Michele Gamburd.

Ratification

No member of the bargaining team found this negotiating cycle pleasant, and no member is pleased to present a TA with salary reductions. This was a very difficult environment in which to bargain; the financial challenges facing PSU and the Oregon University System are real. In the end the bargaining team believes they negotiated the best agreement possible. All are proud that the rates of reduction we negotiated for PSU-AAUP bargaining unit members are lower than those accepted by Oregon state and municipal workers, are lower than the cuts imposed at other OUS campuses to date, and are lower than the 4.6% that administrators have had to endure.

The collective bargaining team recommends that the Tentative Agreement be ratified.

Everyone who is a union member as of September 21, 2009 will be eligible to vote on the ratification of the contract.

Fair share fee payers are not eligible to vote.

We will be using the Helios Online Voting System for the ratification vote. Members will receive an email message with a link to the election site by Monday September 28, 2009. If you do not receive an email with the link, please let Phil know at phil(at)psuaaup(dot)net. Voting will close one week later, at the end of the day on Monday, 5 October.

The full text of the Tentative Agreement is available online here. We encourage members to evaluate the TA before the vote opens, and to vote early.

Bargaining update meeting

PSU-AAUP will hold a bargaining update meeting on Tuesday, 22 September from 1-3, location TBA. (Note: Our meeting is immediately before Convocation.) Snacks will be served, and the bargaining team will be present to let you know more about the tentative agreement and answer questions. Please also feel free to contact me at gamburdm(at)pdx(dot)edu for further details.

In solidarity,

Michele Gamburd, VP Collective Bargaining
For the PSU-AAUP Collective Bargaining Team