Union leaders: UO faculty strike could start March 31

Presenter: University of Oregon union leaders asked the Board of Trustees to avert a historic first-ever faculty strike. On March 18, United Academics President Mike Urbancic:

Mike Urbancic (United Academics): Mike Urbancic, president of United Academics of the University of Oregon. On Friday, hundreds of faculty, students, staff, alumni and allies held a rally right out here outside this building and then marched down 13th Avenue to Johnson Hall, waving signs, filling the air with chants and song.

[00:00:28] Later that day, our strike authorization vote ended with 89% of the membership of United Academics turning out for that vote: 92% voted to authorize our bargaining team to declare a strike if they deemed that necessary.

[00:00:44] For the first time, we could see a faculty strike on this campus starting as early as March 31, the first day of the spring term.

[00:00:52] How did we arrive at this crisis? The short answer: Years of neglect followed by months of intransigence.

[00:01:00] Something (UO Chief Financial Officer) Jamie (Moffitt) jumped in to say yesterday caught my ear. She said the following: During the pandemic there was massive inflation in construction. And some of our buildings at that time, I believe it was Huestis (Hall) primarily, had significant inflation given what was going on in the market. ‘And that was actually a situation where we were able to get some additional state funds because the state recognized this was happening.’

[00:01:21] This. This right here is the very core of why we are here perched at this unprecedented crisis of eventual faculty strike 13 days from now—the recognition by the University administration that inflation and market dynamics matter in capital projects and that the state should be called upon to help, while denying the impacts of inflation and ignoring the role of market dynamics in faculty compensation.

[00:01:49] As my colleague Edward Davis pointed out when speaking to this board in December, our purchasing power has eroded so much over the last five years, that he truly does make less in real terms as an associate professor than he did as an assistant professor.

[00:02:02] The idea that it’s fine and normal for associate professors at UO now to make 10% less in real terms than equivalently ranked associate professors five years ago is ludicrous on its face.

[00:02:16] If the administration finds itself without the resources to offer faculty a fair contract at this point, that is due to years of their own poor planning and their enthusiastic pursuit of other priorities.

[00:02:31] Let me be clear: If shortchanging the faculty at this juncture has been a foundational assumption underpinning the administration’s budgets and initiatives in recent years, that would be inexcusable, indefensible, and categorically unacceptable.

This administration has had three years to plan for this new contract—in light of inflation, in light of our comparator salaries, in light of the results of the campus climate survey that they themselves paid Gallup hundreds of thousands of dollars to conduct.

[00:03:03] I understand that funding for capital projects works differently than budgeting for operations. Nevertheless, again: Neglect is not responsible stewardship. Every time that argument is made that that’s why faculty need to be shortchanged in this moment, it is only an indictment of the years of poor planning that have brought us to this moment.

[00:03:32] Five years ago, we learned to our surprise that we can mostly carry out the mission of the university without campus buildings. What will we learn two weeks from now? Will this institution be able to carry on its mission without its faculty? Sometime in the next week and a half we’re going to find out.

[00:03:54] Kate Mills: My name is Kate Mills and I’m currently the executive vice president of United Academics… I’m not here to warn about a faculty strike. I’m actually here to address what happens after the contract is settled. The morale amongst University of Oregon faculty is low.

[00:04:13] The trust in the administration is broken, and even if the contract is settled this week, what has been demonstrated by the university’s administration is that faculty time is not valued and our concerns are not readily heard.

[00:04:28] We did not need to spend over a year negotiating this contract. All four unions on campus reached an impasse in their last round of negotiations.

[00:04:39] I’m here to implore the Board of Trustees to start planning now for how to not be in this position during the next round of negotiations. And while I understand Chair (Steve) Holwerda’s assertion that the Board of Trustees does not get involved in bargaining, I encourage the Board to treat setting the salaries of their faculty like they do for any employee they would not wish to lose.

[00:05:03] Two weekends ago, I was listening to KLCC while preparing my family’s breakfast, when I heard it stated (by Chair Holwerda, if I’m not mistaken) on KLCC that the board approved a raise in Coach Lanning’s contract ‘to stay competitive in the market and not lose this employee.’

[00:05:20] It would be wonderful to hear the same sound clip in a future newscast where the chair of our Board of Trustees shared how they approved a budget that allowed the University to offer their faculty a competitive salary and keep them here at the University of Oregon.

[00:05:36] It is possible. And I think it could be a first step on the path to regaining faculty trust.

[00:05:44] Mae Bracelin (UO Student Workers / UAW): My name is Mae Bracelin. I’m a student worker at GSH (Global Scholars Hall) and an organizer with UO Student Workers / United Auto Workers. I’ve been working with our union since before we were certified. It has been the hallmark of my experience at the University of Oregon.

[00:05:58] Working with my union has genuinely changed my life, and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities to be able to attend this university and to meet the people that I organize with. This work has changed the trajectory of my life and to that I owe this university

[00:06:14] For these reasons, it was deeply upsetting to me to receive a code of conduct violation related to my participation in a campus labor council rally. Expulsion as a student worker would look like termination from my job, in addition to severance from my ability to receive higher education.

[00:06:32] In the last two years, multiple students have received code of conduct violations for breaching the free speech policies. Every single one of these students was engaging in the academic pursuit of struggling to bring forward a better world. Isn’t that what we all seek to accomplish through our learning and study? These students fought to end a genocide and they fought for their rights as workers.

[00:06:58] And I’m proud to be a student at this university, but it makes me less proud every time the code of conduct is weaponized against one of my friends or one of my colleagues. I hope to see change in that regard.

[00:07:14] I also wanted to speak on another set of important articles to our union and to our membership. On things as important as workplace discrimination, we need independent arbitration of discrimination grievances. Without the ability to have a third party investigate claims of discrimination, our nondiscrimination article is hardly enforceable. This is in the interest of not just our union and student workers, but of the university at large.

[00:07:41] Nobody here wants to attend, work for, or manage a university that has a discrimination problem. I doubt that the state of Oregon would like to fund a university that has a discrimination problem.

[00:07:55] At the end of this day, everyone in this room has the same goal. We all seek to build a better UO, but a better UO looks like one that does not exploit its workers, the people who make it run—the classifieds, the student workers, the GEs (graduate employees), the professors, the faculty, the staff.

United Academics is here today as well. They’ve already spoken. Their strike authorization vote, like ours, has given them the authority to call a strike if need be. As I’m sure you know, a faculty strike would massively disrupt this university’s ability to function, as would a student worker strike.

[00:08:28] Investing in UO means investing in the education of our students, not just investing in building and housing and the things that make quick money. It means investing in our future and reputation as a university and the only way to invest in that education is to invest in the workers who educate.

[00:08:46] Oregon can’t rise without its workers. It also can’t rise without being a steward of our environment and having a clean conscience in regards to its investments. It also cannot rise through caving into pressure from far-right politicians and cracking down on academic freedoms.

[00:09:04] As a UAW member, it is impossible to ignore the ongoing catastrophe at Columbia and wonder if such retaliation will be visited upon our campus next. Please prove me wrong, and please listen to what these people here have to say and know that they have the best interests, the same interests that you have in their hearts.

[00:09:26] Jace Deininger: My name is Jace Deininger, and I’m a student worker at University Catering and an organizer with UO Student Workers / UAW.

[00:09:34] Student workers are responsible for setting up these tables for you, serving your food, cooking your food, taking at your trash, and ensuring that President Scholz has enough of his favorite soda at every event that he attends. We ensure that the university can function on a day-to-day basis.

[00:09:50] Members of the university’s bargaining team told us that the purpose of student worker jobs is to enrich the college experience. This fails to recognize that many student workers rely on these jobs to fund our education, housing, food, and other living costs. I didn’t get my job to enrich my experience. I got my job because I needed it to afford to attend this university.

[00:10:11] However, the one month pay period makes it incredibly difficult for workers who have to balance rent, tuition, groceries, and more, assuming that the payments are actually on time. The university has received two letters from the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries regarding the failure to pay new workers within a span of 35 days as required by law, this means that the university has been paying workers at an illegal interval for a very long time.

[00:10:35] How are students who are living paycheck to paycheck supposed to survive if they are not paid for over a month?

[00:10:43] When we first brought up the first letter to the UO’s bargaining team several months ago, they claimed they would fix the issue. The university then received a second letter from BOLI stating that it is still violating this law and that the issue has not been fixed. I don’t think this university wants a reputation for not paying its workers on time.

[00:11:01] Speaking of pay, UO’s bargaining team refuses to engage with us on wages. When discussing potential raises for student workers, they won’t give any number other than zero. This is inappropriate.

[00:11:12] Students deserve to be fairly compensated for our labor, which all of you depend on daily. It is entirely unreasonable to not offer student workers any form of raise, especially as inflation continues to rise. We shouldn’t have to choose between rent, groceries, and tuition. Our university should be paying us for all three.

[00:11:31] On Monday, March 3, UO student workers launched our strike authorization vote, which gives our bargaining team the authority to call a strike if necessary. The vote closed on Friday, March 14 with 94.5% of workers who voted voting ‘Yes.’

[00:11:45] We do not want to have to go on strike. However, our current working conditions are not at the level we deserve, and student workers have overwhelmingly proven that they’re ready to strike if we can’t get a contract at the bargaining table.

[00:11:58] Lastly, I would like to express solidarity with our fellow student organizers from Climate Justice League and the UO Palestine Coalition. We support CJL’s call for a decarbonized campus and green energy. We also support the demand that the university disclose and divest its investments from the U.S. – Israeli war machine and weapons manufacturers, and to cease the weaponization of the student code of conduct against student protestors and activists.

[00:12:19] Presenter: Union leaders remind the UO Board of Trustees that a first-ever faculty strike could start as early as March 31. A mediation session between the bargaining teams is scheduled for March 27. The University website says the UO is preparing for faculty to withhold labor the day the strike starts.

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Speakers edited for length and clarity.