Oregon Higher Ed Union Contract Negotiations

We have provided some information and points of view here on how union contract negotiations are going for Oregon state workers. A key group within those on-going negotiations are the higher ed classified workers. Since most faculty in Oregon higher ed are not union-represented, and since the higher ed system in Oregon seems to be in either near-permanent crisis mode or a victim of its own institutional lack of inertia, contract negotiations for higher ed workers tell us a great deal about how the state responds to class struggle and economic crisis.

The first bargaining session between the Oregon University System (OUS) and SEIU Local 503, the union union representing most higher ed classified workers, was held on February 26.

The union came to the bargaining table prepared to make some concessions in light of the bleak cloud hanging over state union contract negotiations and the budget shortfalls Oregon is experiencing. Union negotiators have in mind a line, however poorly understood, that they are unwilling to cross in doing concessions-driven bargaining, however. There are core needs that workers have that cannot be pushed aside because of a crisis which is not of their making, and the union entered negotiations with some understanding of this. Local 503's negotiating committee is comprised of rank and file members with one or two union staff providing direction.

The initial OUS proposal at contract bargaining went well beyond the concessions the state is demanding in state worker contract negotiations, and seems to attack many of the essentials higher ed workers need to hang onto. It also went further than the union's negotiating team anticipated. Some highlights of OUS's proposal are:

∗ No cost of living adjustments
∗ A salary step freeze
∗ All holidays occurring between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2011 will be unpaid furlough days
∗ Opening the door to additional unpaid furloughs of classified workers
∗ Eliminating the ability of workers to cash out vacation hours

In the main, the proposals are an attack on higher ed unionism, which has already been seriously undermined by grant-driven employment, a lack of protection for bargaining unit work, competition between campuses, the peculiar structure of higher education in Oregon, piecemeal reforms, changes in technology, university administration's hostility to real union leadership and uneven union leadership at the base. These problems mirror what has been occurring in higher ed nationally and highlight a shortcoming in the labor and progressive movements: labor and the left do not know how to approach higher ed and its crises in a comprehensive way. In the face of this, higher ed workers in Oregon are divided and many still hope for better union-OUS relations.

The crisis in Oregon's higher ed system is real and predates this current round of negotiations. We have written a great deal about this in the past. As negotiations are getting under way, one solution being advanced in the media is to put all of higher ed under the University of Oregon. Reaction to this proposal from administrations at the other six schools has been understandably negative because it threatens the high salaries of bureaucrats and political and economic relationships of long standing, but the proposal deserves to be discussed and decided democratically.