1. After Mediation, What Now? First: Plan to Info Picket, Jan 14 & 15, 11 – 2!
Second: Flyer Party - Join Us Mon, Jan 6th, 5 - 6:30 pm, Starting from CH 265
Followed by Pizza and Beer, if you can stay...
2. Summer School Staffing and Pay – Adjuncts Only?
3. Admin Advises Blaming AAUP for their Inhumane “Christmas Letters” Policy
4. Senate Budget Resolution Vote, Monday, Jan 6th – contact your Senator!
5. Happy New Year! Let's Make 2014 Excellent!
No Progress in Mediation, What Now?
Two days of mediation Dec 18th & 19th yielded nothing but worse “offers” from the PSU Administration, and no explanations for the glaring discrepancies in the “case” for the budget cuts.
However, we did
* extend the contract through the end of January,
* schedule two additional mediation days on Jan 8th and Jan 13th, and
* obtain agreement that the Faculty Development Grants and Travel Funds will be
available on the same scale as last year. You’ll be hearing about the application
process from the Faculty Senate Faculty Development Committee in a few weeks.
If Jan Mediation Days Don't Get Us a Decent Contract
Option One: Just keep negotiating....
Option Two: PSU-AAUP and the Admin can jointly call for Fact-Finding and
and Arbitration, which we would welcome!
Option Three: Either side can declare Impasse, which would trigger a 30-day
"cooling off" period, during which we could keep negotiating.
After 30 days,
* the Admin could impose a contract on us,
* we could call a vote to authorize a strike at any point
from then on.
Only pressure will move Pres Wiewel to alter his position that PSU Faculty must:
* give up contract protection of Faculty Senate language,
* accept even less stability on the part of fixed-term faculty,
* fall further behind in pay, and
* allow big cuts in academic programs, while keeping the 20 new Exec Admin
positions, and their entourages, added in the last 10 years.
We need to step up that pressure.
Come Help Flyer the Campus, Monday, Jan 6th, 5 - 6:30 pm, CH 265 !!!
Stay for pizza and beer afterward, if you can!
Bring Everyone You Can out to Informational Pickets Jan 14 and 15, 11 – 2 !!!
Please carve out time to join us for as long as you can, to let people know that PSU is going in the wrong direction and the Faculty won’t stand for it.
Students are going into serious debt for an education; academics MUST be PSU’s overwhelming priority.
2. Summer School – to be taught by Adjuncts Only?
CLAS Dept chairs have been asked to submit summer school plans, with budgets 20% lower than last year and – in the case of my own Dept – 64% less than what we worked with before Summer Session was taken over by the Dean’s office.
Of course, the number of student credit hours is not to drop! But quality.....not a word...
Summer Session always turned a profit when it was independent, though it consistently paid faculty 10% of their 9-month salary per 4-credit course.
What is PSU bleeding Summer Session to pay for that is more important than the quality and consistency of our academic offerings?
3. HR Memo Advises Blaming AAUP for Non-Renewal
"Christmas Letters"
In a recent memo of guidelines for delivering mass layoff notices in the form of non-renewal “Christmas Letters” to fixed-term faculty, HR recommends
* telling people that these letters are required by the AAUP contract, and
* being ready with tissues and water for emotional reactions.
The truth is that
* notice is required by the P & T guidelines, NOT the AAUP contract, except as
the contract requires AAUP consent to Admin changes in the P & T process.
* people who have worked at PSU for 10, 15 and even 20 years are still receiving
these letters!
* laying EVERYONE off EVERY YEAR, rather plan at the most minimal level,
is Administration policy fought by many Chairs who know they'll need people
in the fall.
And the P & T Guidelines ACTUALLY call for everyone to get their notice of re-appointment by Jan 1, not Oct 1 or whenever it really happens...
4. Faculty Senate Budget Resolution Vote – Monday, Jan 6th
Contact your Senator - and other Senators - to let them know that you support passage of the Faculty Senate Budget Resolution calling for access to an All Funds, Line-Item budget. Faculty cannot be expected to hack the academic core of the University, without seeing more than the very partial budget made available, even to Faculty Senate Budget Committee members. Academic Professionals and Fixed-term Faculty are represented in the Faculty Senate, as well as Tenure-line Faculty.
Find Faculty Senators here:
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~mpj/districts/districts2013.pdf
The vote will be confidential, conducted by clicker.