University of Oregon Unionizing Effort Gets Press

Although professors at the University of Oregon have been quietly organizing for months, the news came out with a bang this week. The AP ran a story that was picked up by the Oregonian, Eugene Register-Guard, and Corvallis Gazette Times.

The effort still is in the informational stage with meetings being held around campus to discuss the idea and hear from faculty members at other universities who have formed unions. Organizers say it’s not certain if or when professors will be asked to vote on the question, but one said an election could be held before the end of the current academic year.

The source of their frustration will sound familiar to PSU faculty:

The UO ranks last in average salary and in average total compensation — pay plus benefits — on a list of nine large public universities the state uses for comparing budgets. The average faculty salary is 80 percent of the average for the other eight universities, and total compensation is 84 percent of the average.

Also, the UO ranks last in pay among the 60 members of the Association of American Universities, an invitation-only group made up of many of the top public and private universities around the nation. In that comparison, the UO’s average faculty salary of $73,300 is 11.5 percent below that of the second-to-last school, the University of Missouri, which has an average faculty salary of $82,600.

We wish the organizers well!

PSU-SEIU Settles with Portland State

The announcement came out at about 5pm Saturday night. SEIU calls the deal "substantially equivalent to the agreement that DAS workers reached with the Governor six weeks ago." Details, from the SEIU website:

1. We protected fully paid health care premiums for full-time employees and froze premiums for the part-time plan. We are now one of only two states in the country where full time state employees don't pay for part of their health care premiums.
2. Instead of management's plan for a two-year step freeze, we won back steps in the second year of the contract. Members who get steps in July, August, or September 2009 will have those steps rolled back on October 1, 2009, but those steps will be restored on 10/1/10, when the step freeze will end and regular step increments will resume.


3. We forced management to withdraw proposals for unlimited furloughs and an across-the-board pay cut!


4. Furlough days will be scheduled as follows:


   

Monthly pay of $2,450 or below: 8 days


Monthly pay $2,451 to $3,105: 12 days


Monthly pay $3,106 to $5,733: 14 days


Monthly pay $5,734 or higher: 16 days



"These tiers are similar but not identical to those in the DAS contract. We tried hard to get rid of the fourth tier, but in this area, we could not move the management bargainers. However, we note that because the threshold for the top tier is quite high, these tiers actually result in a lower average number of furlough days than the DAS contract requires."

Next up: bargaining between PSU and AAUP on Friday at 2pm.

SEIU Files Unfair Labor Practices Complaint

Amid much news that will soon be coming out about the various unions and universities bargaining with the OUS, note this down:

A union representing 4,500 non-academic employees at Oregon's seven public universities filed an unfair labor practice complaint this week accusing university negotiators of refusing to include 14 student recyclers in contract talks.

SEIU Local 503 says the undergraduate students, who collect recycling at Portland State University, voted to join the union in July and should be part of negotiations on behalf of the entire unit.

Later in the article, OUS's Rick Hampton is quoted as saying that this "is not fair to us." Hampton has been leading negotiations of the unions dealing with OUS, and fairness has definitely not been a hallmark of the discussions so far. It is especially rich that Hampton/OUS are the ones claiming to be the wronged parties. A harbinger of things to come.