Oregon’s most proletarian professors protest bottom 10 percent pay
I don’t have any job security,” said Portland State University philosophy professor Brian Elliott at a Nov. 19 union rally. “That’s why I’m here.”
Full-time PSU faculty are represented by American Association of University Professors (AAUP), but this year’s union contract talks have not produced an agreement, and the two sides begin mediation in December.
Elliott, who wore a cap and gown to the rally, was a tenured professor in University College Dublin, but followed his wife to Portland in 2008.
“There I made $100,000 and had a job for life,” Elliott. “Here I make $40,000 and have no job security whatsoever.”
AAUP is pushing a number of proposals to improve job security for non-tenured faculty. For example, they would be on year-to-year contracts instead of term-to-term as now, and two- or three-year contracts after they’ve worked there four years. PSU administration said ‘no’ to that.
PSU is proposing a 1 percent across-the-board pay raise — less than inflation — at a school where faculty are among the least-paid in the United States. AAUP is proposing a series of raises, including a 2.5 percent cost-of-living raise, a 1 percent across the board raise, and bigger raises when faculty are promoted.
The two sides are scheduled to meet with a mediator Dec. 18 and 19.