Professors get contract after PSU drops takeaway demands
Averting a strike, AAUP improves salaries and job security
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
American Association of University
Professors (AAUP) reached tentative
agreement on a new contract with Port-
land State University (PSU) April 6 —
three days after the union announced
that a strike would begin April 16.
The deal was made possible when
PSU’s administration dropped demands
for concessions, and agreed to modest
improvements in pay and job security.
AAUP represents 950 full-time fac-
ulty at PSU. They were scheduled to
vote on the agreement April 15-16 (after
this issue went to press), with AAUP
leaders predicting approval.
The agreement addresses union
members’ top concern — lack of job se-
curity. At PSU, hundreds of “fixed-
term” faculty have never felt like per-
manent hires, because they serve under
one-year employment contracts, which
sometimes aren’t renewed until just be-
fore a new academic year. The new
agreement commits PSU to offer em-
ployment contracts of two or three years
duration to all but the 20 percent least
senior fixed-term faculty, once they’ve
taught at least four years. AAUP had
proposed that all fixed-term faculty get
multi-year contracts after four years —
something University of Oregon guar-
anteed in its first-ever faculty union con-
tract last year — but in the end settled
for 80 percent in order to get a deal.
The new PSU contract also provides
a variety of salary increases: a 1.5 per-
cent across-the-board raise retroactive
to Jan. 1, 2014 that’s intended to bring
members closer to salaries at compara-
ble institutions; two 2.5 percent cost-of-
living raises on Jan. 1, 2014, and Jan. 1,
2015; and a new salary floor of $40,000
for all full-time faculty and academic
professionals. PSU also agreed to form
a labor-management-student task force
to look at improving academic quality
at the school.
The agreement contains no conces-
sions by AAUP. PSU dropped a pro-
posal to eliminate AAUP’s say over fac-
ulty evaluation and promotion policies,
as well as a proposal to give manage-
ment broad discretion to change any-
thing not specifically spelled out in the
contract.
“We stopped 100 percent of the bad
and got 90 percent of what we were
looking for,” said AAUP spokesperson
Jose Padin, a professor of sociology.
“We’re still not being rewarded com-
mensurate to our service relative to our
peers in comparator institutions, but in
terms of stability there are big im-
provements.”
If ratified, the agreement will be
retroactive to Aug. 31, 2013, and will
run through Nov. 30, 2015.
The contract settlement comes after
a long season of frustration: The previ-
ous contract expired Aug. 31, 2013, and
on Feb. 24, 2014, AAUP authorized a
strike by a margin of 94 percent, with
about 796 members casting a ballot.
PSU’s administration could have set-
tled months ago, but instead adopted a
bellicose posture. It demanded conces-
sions, and deployed a management-
side labor attorney — Brian Caufield
— who allegedly cursed and screamed
at members of the AAUP bargaining
team. Caufield was not part of the 20-
hour-long mediation session that pro-
duced the tentative agreement. For
those final talks, PSU President Wim
Wiewel consulted by phone, having
canceled a planned trip to Turkey.
Padin attributes the administration’s
turnaround to a big increase in public
pressure — and a realization that
AAUP was serious about going on
strike for the first time ever.
“It was no longer inside ball,” Padin
said. “There were a lot of eyes on the
president.”
Sister higher-ed union American
Federation of Teachers-Oregon passed
a resolution calling on members not to
teach struck classes. Oregon Education
Association scheduled a joint press
conference with AAUP for April 7 out-
side Wiewel’s office.
PSU had announced it was planning
to remain open in the event of a strike,
but a letter to the administration signed
by the heads of 25 academic depart-
ments said it would be “almost impos-
sible,” to replace strikers with instruc-
tors capable of teaching their courses.
“I’m teaching an upper division and
graduate-level class in U.S. economic
history,” said AAUP President Mary
King. “Try putting that on Craigslist.”
Up to 70 percent of classes were ex-
pected to be cancelled if the strike went
forward, idling about 30,000 students.
The contract dispute also saw the
emergence of a large and active pro-
union student group — the PSU Stu-
dent Union — with about 800 signed-
up supporters led by 30 student
activists. About 500 of them turned out
for a pro-union rally Feb. 27. Two stu-
dents also sat through the entire con-
tract negotiation as observers.
Padin called the contract settlement
a first step in a long campaign in which
faculty are in conflict with administra-
tors over resources and decision-mak-
ing.
“The crisis of quality of education
as we feel it locally is the product of a
scissors effect — state level defunding,
and crooked priorities,” Padin said.
Those issues were examined in de-
tail at an April 3 Workers’ Rights Board
hearing that painted a pretty unflatter-
ing picture of Portland State. The Board,
a project of the union-community coali-
tion Portland Jobs with Justice, consists
of panels of community leaders who
hear testimony about union struggles.
State Sen. Chip Shields, a PSU gradu-
ate, and State Rep. Jennifer Williamson,
whose Oregon House district includes
the PSU campus, were among the April
3 panelists.
PSU has always been a “scrappy un-
derdog” that has done more with less,
said AAUP President King, but in recent
years it’s lost focus on its mission of
quality, affordable university education:
Classroom instruction has fallen to just
33 percent of its budget, while adminis-
tration, athletics, and real estate devel-
opment have grown, along with tuition
and class size.
Grad student Joyce McNair said she
was shocked to learn that her professors
make just $5,000 a year more than she
earns at her union job making Oreo
cookies as a member of the Bakers
Union; it made her question her deci-
sion to go into debt in hopes of an aca-
demic career.
At the close of the hearing, Shields
read the panel’s recommendations: that
instruction should make up 39 percent
of the university budget in three years
(back to the level it was six years ago),
and 50 percent of the budget in eight to
10 years.
AAUP leaders said they’ll be cam-
paigning for that, and also for a reduc-
tion of tuition and student debt, and
an increase in state funding. Only three
states spend less per student on higher
education than Oregon.
“I have heard you, and I’m listen-
ing,” said PSU president Wim Wiewel
April 7, addressing the faculty senate
the day after the deal was reached.
Wiewel said he had “not fully appreci-
ated the extent of frustration and dis-
agreement from the faculty about
PSU’s direction. Of course I read
AAUP’s statements, but my own inter-
actions with faculty and staff over
these years gave me a more positive
impression of the campus mood. Prob-
ably this was some combination of
your ‘Portland polite’ and my peren-
nial optimism.”
All are invited to UA #290 seminar
on ‘Union Heritage’ April 22 and 24
Plumbers and Fitters Local 290 is
hosting a two night seminar on “Union
Heritage” April 22 and 24. The free
event is open to all union members,
families, and nonunion friends and
neighbors.
“George Santayana, a Spanish citi-
zen and philosopher, once said: ‘Those
who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it.’ Unfortunately,
that is exactly what workers in Amer-
ica are doing — repeating the past,”
said Dennis Coplin, Local 290’s direc-
tor of political and legislative affairs.
“The only way we can hope to com-
bat this attack on the American worker
is to educate everyone regarding what
has happened, who is behind the attack
on workers, and why,” Coplin said.
The seminar will cover the Davis
Bacon Act, the National Labor Rela-
tions Act (NLRA), the Taft Hartley
Act, and right-to work (which is incor-
porated in the Taft Hartley Act).
Through the use of charts and
graphs, Coplin will illustrate how
Davis Bacon and the NLRA helped
create a strong middle class in the
United States, and how the Taft Hartley
PAGE 4
Act was designed to harm unionized
workers. He will also talk about cur-
rent legislation designed to destroy
unions and the working middle class.
“I want people to know why unions
are being attacked by the top 10 per-
cent of the wealthiest people in Amer-
ica who feel threatened by an educated
workforce who have rights at work,”
Coplin said.
“That is the reason that I want to in-
vite everyone from every trade, craft or
union that is out there,” he said. “I also
want everyone to reach out and invite
nonunion workers to attend this semi-
nar, as well.”
The seminar will be held at Local
290’s meeting hall, 20210 SW Teton
Ave., Tualatin, from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.
on Tuesday, April 22, and Thursday,
April 24. Pizza will be served.
The seminars also will be available
via remote broadcast to Local 290’s
training centers located in Salem, Med-
ford, Springfield, and Redmond, Ore-
gon, and Eureka, California.
For more information, or to register,
call Jodi at 503-612-4922 or email to
jhurdle@ua290.org.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
APRIL 18, 2014