Empowered by your solidarity

Bargaining Recap: October 31st

Over the course of the last nine months, your PSUFA bargaining team has confronted conduct from the administration and its lawyers that has ranged from troubling to outright illegal. Even after their rebuke by the state’s Employment Relations Board, the University’s leadership unrepentantly slow-walked the release of the withheld benefits funds, only disbursing them at the very end of the 30-day period required by law.

While fighting these union-busting tactics, your Union has continued to work relentlessly for a fair contract, still engaging in good-faith bargaining to demand better working conditions for you and your fellow Adjuncts. Empowered by your solidarity, your team came to the negotiation table last Friday with a strategic proposal for your job security that will test whether there is, beneath all of PSU’s bluster and manipulations, any vestige of a real commitment to faculty and student success.

Articles 3 & 7: Union and Member Rights

Before presenting an offer on the most crucial job security provisions of your contract, your bargaining team defended some of the more basic rights afforded to you and your Union. Beginning with a discussion of Admin’s counterproposal for Article 3 (Union Privileges and Limitations), which had been preempted by their meltdown during the last session, your team argued once again for the importance of contract language critical to labor organizing and solidarity, such as campus access privileges for future PSUFA staff and protections for Adjuncts against the pressure to scab during other unions’ strikes. Responding to the University’s counterproposal for Article 7 (Member Rights), your team challenged Admin’s effort to hide behind a distinction in state labor law that differentiates between topics that are mandatory for negotiation and those that are merely “permissive”—a category that PSU, in an Orwellian turn, has elected to treat as prohibited. Though, in the wake of the unfair labor practice ruling, the University has retreated from some of its broader claims about which subjects it considers out of bounds, your team still had to take Admin to task for its resistance to language that would accomplish critical goals like expanding the list of identity classes that would protect you from discrimination, committing to the sanctuary campus status that would ensure you and your students’ safety, and articulating safeguards that would defend your intellectual property rights. Point-by-point, PSUFA exposed the University for its unwillingness to provide you with any meaningful protections above and beyond the bare-minimum requirements of the law.

Articles 8 & 6: Job Security and Academic Freedom

Your bargaining team then moved to present a strategic offer that, if accepted, would strengthen the keystone provisions for Adjunct job security outlined in Article 8 (Appointments and Assignments Rights). In the bargaining survey conducted in Fall 2024, you and your fellow Adjuncts identified insecure working conditions as one of your most pressing concerns. So far, the University has only managed to offer a counterproposal for this article that would further jeopardize your appointments and course assignments, radically undermining the limited but hard-won structures of stability that PSU Adjuncts have come to rely upon. You and your Union know that maximizing and diversifying Adjunct faculty courseloads gives PSU students the chance to build more durable ongoing learning relationships, a convergence of values that makes your job security a critical component of student success at this University. Many of us also recognize, though, that our students deserve the opportunity to work with educators who are not merely experts in their field but who are also skilled in meeting the needs unique to PSU’s student body. To that end, your bargaining team has signaled to PSU an openness to extending the introductory period for newly hired adjuncts.

Proposing a change to the initial period of employment for “term” adjuncts from eight credits to two years of service, your Union made this offer contingent upon Admin’s acceptance of a robust package of improvements that would enhance and reinforce the job security provisions for Adjuncts who have already proven their merit to PSU’s students. These measures include preserving your assignment rights through extended breaks in service (from one to two years), limiting the parameters for “academic judgement” justifications that alter the terms of your appointment, and empowering you to request a recalculation of the average credit load that you are entitled to teach. Additionally, this updated proposal for Article 8 included language invoking your academic freedom protections, directly linking your job security to safeguards for your speech and pedagogical choices inside and outside of the classroom. Effectively bundling this part of the contract with your Union’s proposal for Article 6 (Academic Freedom), which was also re-presented at the table on Friday, PSUFA invited the University to make a meaningful investment in the essential workers of this University, improving your working conditions in ways that will bolster the learning conditions of PSU’s students.

Your bargaining team remains clear-eyed about the nature of the University’s opposition to your rights and your solidarity. The work you have done—from observing bargaining and sending the “March on the Boss” emails to massing together for the “You Can’t Bust Us” rally and participating in the ongoing strike school campaign (which you can RSVP for here)—has provided your team with the resolve it needs to face down Admin’s bad faith tactics. If the University ultimately agrees to your Union’s common-ground proposal, it will be because of the collective actions that you and your fellow Adjuncts have taken, compelling PSU to meet its obligations to every member of its faculty and to our students.

You Can't Bust Us

Admin’s embarrassing retreat from the bargaining table at the end of last week’s session revealed that they are faltering in response to the force that you and your Union have exerted in the wake of our Unfair Labor Practice victory.

When the bargaining teams returned to the negotiations on Friday, they did so in a campus environment that has been changed by you and your fellow adjunct colleagues, thanks to the work you’ve done to fight back against the University’s unprecedented union-busting agenda. Adjuncts and our student allies have filled the air with chants of “Union Power!” marching from Urban Plaza to President Ann Cudd’s office to confront her with notice of the state board’s ruling. Court-ordered admissions of wrongdoing, reluctantly signed by the Vice Provost of Faculty Success, have appeared in departments and adjunct offices across PSU. Media outlets have begun publicizing the University’s bad faith actions to the wider community. And the clock is running out on the 30-day deadline that the University has for finally releasing the funds.

While the increased pressure on PSU was palpable, last Friday’s meeting began on deceptively civil terms. Your PSUFA bargaining team started with a move to accept a tentative agreement on Article 10 (Grievances), which will ensure that you have the power to defend the rights articulated in your contract. Conflict began to surface, though, when Admin presented their counterproposal on Article 4 (Orientations). While your team has convinced PSU that regular paid orientations for new Adjuncts are essential for faculty success, PSUFA has had to push back on Admin’s flimsy argument that clerical issues prevent them from compensating you for that training at a meaningful rate. PSU then presented their counterproposal on Article 6 (Academic Freedom). Your bargaining team challenged the University’s neglect of explicit protections for Adjuncts to express themselves outside of the university setting (extramural speech), as well as within it. PSUFA once again had to educate Admin on the precarious position of faculty members who lack the protections of tenure and continuous employment, reiterating the need for grievance procedures to defend your academic freedom.

It was during PSUFA’s presentation on Article 12 (Salaries and Payroll, slides here) that the Admin team’s composure began to break. Once again, your bargaining team reaffirmed that you deserve equal pay for equal work. Countering the University’s insulting offer of a bare-minimum cost of living allowance of 2.1% with no raise, your team insisted on substantial increases to your pay (a $1,882 per-credit minimum), lowering the initial proposal while still calling for 85% pay parity with our non-tenure-line full-time colleagues. Your Union also detailed other proposals, including increases to compensation for additional forms of labor (such as curriculum development and committee work), the implementation of length-of-service pay raises, a recommitment to funding adjunct inclusion initiatives, and humane changes to benefits, such as the creation of a shared sick leave program to expand access and make sick leave a usable resource for the Adjuncts who most need it.

Throughout these discussions, Admin grew increasingly agitated at questions about their choice to ignore proposed improvements to Adjunct working conditions. Asked why the University had eliminated adjunct inclusion funding from their earlier counterproposal, PSU’s team refused to answer, claiming that they do not engage in discussion during the other team’s proposal presentations, a contention that runs contrary to what has been standard practice at the bargaining table. An awkward scene unfolded as they buckled under the pressure that you and your Union have created through our collective action. One member of the administration reproached your team for having demanded—months earlier—that they give their full attention to statements shared from Adjuncts who had been most harmed by the unethical and illegal fund freeze. Admin then impulsively called for a caucus that they did not return from. As your bargaining team watched, a group of highly-paid administrators who have been tasked with overseeing critical functions for the University haphazardly withdrew from the room, reduced to a fragmented and confused muddle, reeling, it seems, from all of their failed attempts to weaken your union.

As bewildering as it was to witness this spectacle, one thing became clear. For all of management’s institutional power, PSU’s administration lacks both the solidarity and the courage of conviction that you and your union have, the very principles that will help us win the fight for a fair contract.

When we fight, we win!

On behalf of your PSUFA Executive Council, we have very exciting news. Your union has won our Unfair Labor Practice complaint against PSU, and the University has been ordered to release the funds they have held hostage since July!

First, we want to acknowledge the work of members who were personally impacted. This win was possible because they stood together, and trusted us to file and fight in court. They didn’t settle for anything less than what they were owed. This legal victory will also make it extremely difficult for PSU to ever argue in the future that they do not have to maintain “status quo” on your contract while in negotiations.

In August, your union filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) complaint against PSU after they cut off funding to the Adjunct Financial Assistance Fund (AFAF), Professional Development Fund, and Faculty Education Fund, citing the expiration of your Collective Bargaining Agreement. Nearly 100 adjuncts were affected and some were anticipating funds for educational opportunities they had already paid for, to make up for lost income from canceled classes, pay their rent, and cover other urgent emergencies. The Employment Relations Board of the State of Oregon agreed that PSU violated labor law and engaged in bad faith bargaining and the Board ordered the University to release the funds they owe to adjuncts!

Though this complaint ultimately needed to be settled through a court decision, member organizing and collective actions made this possible: you and your co-workers' March on the Boss emails, testimony, comments to reporters, were powerful support for your Executive Council and our legal team at AFT–Oregon when we took PSU to court. We fought for what was right, and your solidarity and support allowed us to hold out for the full remedy you deserve, and one that gives the most adjuncts the best outcome, both now, and into the future.

Your union's leadership currently is working with our AFT lawyers to ensure the University implements the remedy legally mandated by the Employment Relations Board (ERB). Here's what we know at this time:

PSU is required to release AFAF, Professional Development reimbursements, and Education Fund awards within 30 days of Friday, Oct. 3.

Here are highlights of the decision:

• The Employment Relations Board (ERB) found that the University violated the law and "status quo" of our contract by failing to release funds under Articles 12, 13, and 15 of PSUFA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

• The University was found to be "bargaining in bad faith” by making a unilateral change to your contract (not paying the contractual funds) that was not a mutually negotiated change.

Here is the relief ordered by the ERB:

Cease & Desist - PSU must cease and desist from violating ORS 243.672(1)(e) and (f). 

Resume Payments - PSU must restore the status quo ante regarding the funds described in this order and, within 30 days from the date of this Order, make whole any affected employee, plus interest at the rate of 9% per annum. 

Notify Employees - Within 10 days of the date of this order, PSU must post the decision for 30 days in prominent places where PSUFA-represented employees are likely to see it. PSU shall distribute this notice by email to all Association-represented employees within 10 days of the date of this order.

Here is the full text of the ERB decision.

This has been a hard fought victory, but if we know one thing we know:

When we fight, we win!

In solidarity,
Vasiliki & Erica, Co-Chairs, PSUFA
Along with all your PSUFA Executive Council members

Fighting for Benefits and "Common Good" Articles

The underlying message of the last bargaining session was this—PSUFA will not back down from the fight to protect your academic freedom and the safe and supportive working conditions that make that freedom possible. In the shadow of looming judgments on the Unfair Labor Practice complaints that your union has filed against the University for its unethical actions on the professional development and hardship funds, PSUFA’s team maintained its commitment to good faith negotiation while refusing to surrender key proposals that would safeguard your right to free political expression, uphold the integrity of your intellectual work, and empower you to contribute to the common good of the campus community as a whole.

Every right articulated in your contract is only as strong as the ability to defend it. Your bargaining team is close to a tentative agreement with the University on Article 10 (Grievances), which will ensure that adjuncts have access to timely and robust grievance procedures that force accountability on management, protecting you from encroachments on your rights.

Admin has been far more resistant, though, to PSUFA’s efforts to strengthen those rights as they are stipulated in Article 6 (Academic Freedom) of your contract. Across the country, higher education is under increasing threat from the technological exploitations of corporate oligarchies, the reactionary activities of anti-intellectual pressure groups, and the illiberal machinations of state institutions, a set of conditions that have mostly been met with opportunistic or craven capitulation by university administrators. Recognizing the danger of this moment, your bargaining team has continued to insist upon contract language that would secure meaningful academic freedom for adjunct faculty members who do not have the protections afforded by tenure, continuous employment, or economic stability.

Despite Admin’s efforts to avoid these discussions by hiding behind technicalities, your bargaining team refused to give up on measures to provide the support and security necessary for academic freedom to remain a viable principle at this university. In a counterproposal on Article 7 (Bargaining Unit Member Rights), your team held fast to a wide-ranging but essential set of provisions intended to secure the integrity of your work and the safety of your community. The proposals include protecting the intellectual property of adjuncts from being appropriated by artificial intelligence or other means without your consent. They would also enshrine PSU’s status as a weapons-free, fossil fuel-free sanctuary campus into your contract, forcing Admin to commit to the kind of environment in which academic freedom can thrive.

The session concluded with your bargaining team’s defense of the benefits funds set out in Article 13 (Faculty Education Fund and Professional Development) and Article 15 (Adjunct Financial Assistance Fund). Committed to the future preservation of these critical resources, PSUFA has repudiated the University’s effort to hold the material wellbeing of adjuncts hostage and to violate the status quo of the previous agreement.

Your team is motivated by a central conviction—that your academic freedom depends on the security of your working conditions and the integrity of your contract.

Our next negotiation sessions will be:
Friday, Oct. 17th, 11-3
Friday, Oct. 31 from 11-3

RSVP to observe bargaining! 

Negotiating a contract with teeth

In comparison to the fireworks of our last two sessions, Friday’s meeting was more quietly smoldering, starting with some morning housekeeping and conversation about our near agreement on Article 10: Grievances and ending with a long interrogation of PSU’s proposal on Article 8: Course Appointments and Assignment Rights. Here is your bargaining recap, broken down by topic.

Benefits Funds

Before delving into discussion of proposals, your Bargaining Team tried again to open conversation around the ongoing issue of the benefits funds, but PSU refused to discuss it at the table. Read more about the fight for the funds in last week’s blog post explainer. On the Monday following Friday’s session, PSUFA representatives participated in an Unfair Labor Practice hearing to testify on our position and determine if the University did indeed violated labor law by not processing benefits funds applications, and bargaining in what is referred to in labor law as, “bad faith.” Your union representatives feel optimistic about our case, but we must wait to hear the board’s ruling, which we anticipate sometime between now and October 5th. 

Your Bargaining Team knows how crucial this funding is for adjuncts both now and in the future. While not at all a substitute for receiving these funds, on option for University employees, including adjuncts, is to apply for a payroll advance through Human Resources. If you’re struggling without these funds (or because of the payroll timeline in general for Fall term), you can apply for a payroll advance through PSU Human Resources by filling out this form. You can find more information about additional financial resources here. Of course, the most powerful tool you have to enforce your contract is organizing with your co-workers, building solidarity and unity to act together.

Article 10: Grievances

Your Bargaining Team has won some key changes to Article 10 (Grievances), improving the grievance process for adjuncts. Reminder: this is arguably one of the most important articles in your CBA—without strong provisions for grieving violations to your contract, your contractual rights are effectively meaningless. Again, organizing your co-worker is a powerful too, but a contract without teeth makes our organizing work much more difficult. Specific wins include: 1) Allowing for group grievances on behalf of multiple adjuncts, without every single adjunct needing to file a grievance, 2) Streamlining and shortening the grievance process to come to a remedy more promptly, and 3) Eliminating the requirement of using an outdated and problematic grievance form.

Article 8: Course Appointments & Assignment Rights

Due to the complex nature of Article 8 (Course Appointments and Assignment Rights), and the fact that PSU didn’t present an actual proposal at the table but, instead, gave a more high-level summary of their proposed new system, your Bargaining Team had a lot of questions about the intent and the implications of their language.

PSU’s proposal introduces substantial changes to our current contract. While there is consensus among the teams that Article 8 is the most complex article to administer and that there are things that could be improved, PSU’s proposed ‘improvements’ would include:

• Introduction of a new category of “Probationary Adjuncts”

• The elimination of 2-year contracts

• A new, weaker assignment rights system

• New timelines that ignore the realities of adjuncts' lives

• An evaluation process for adjunct faculty that would more easily result in discipline or termination with no promise of a longer contract

• The loss of credit load minimums

• And more

All of this amounts to the overall degradation of job security for part-time faculty–a topic that PSU’s management team seems entirely unwilling to discuss, claiming it is the “wrong lens’” through which to look at course assignments and assignment rights. We disagree.

Your team will be working this week on preparing counter-proposals on topics like academic freedom and member rights, as well as wages (like minimum per-credit pay rates) and benefits funds. Here are some things you can do:

1. Reach out to a colleague to spread the word about what’s happening at the table. 

2. Sign up for and attend Strike School, and invite a colleague!

3. RSVP to observe bargaining on Friday Sept. 26th, 12–4PM

Bargaining, Benefits Funds, MOU's and ULP's: An Explainer

Haven’t Had a Chance to Read PSUFA’s Bargaining Recaps? Need some help understanding the jargon?

Here’s the tl;dr of the contract expiration issues.

Background: It’s common for a union contract to expire while negotiations continue for the next contract. Typically, the provisions of a contract remain in place during this hiatus period – the law dictates this, plus it's quite a low bar for decent employers. This is referred to as “status quo.” Additionally, status quo has been typical practice at PSU–both in prior negotiations with PSUFA, and recently with the full-time faculty union, PSU AAUP.

PSU’s Scheme: Despite this precedent, PSU began immediately not honoring the 2021–2025 PSUFA contract when it expired on June 30, by not paying out benefits funds, and not allowing the union to file grievances. Then:

1. PSU tried to tie the release of these PAST benefits funds to PSUFA agreeing to a shoddy FUTURE contract. 

2. When that didn’t work, PSU offered an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) that would take the funds out of a future budget, reducing the future funds, and wouldn’t even address the broader issue of the contract expiration. 

Your Bargaining Team realizes this all might be a tad confusing if you are not deeply familiar with the progression of bargaining, so they have created a graphic annotating the proposed MOU. 

PSUFA’s Response: Since then, PSUFA has been battling with PSU to release these funds, making both a legal and moral case by:

1. Offering an MOU for a contract extension, and more recently, a more narrow MOU just to get benefits funds released. PSU has signed neither.

2. Organizing a virtual March on the Boss campaign for adjuncts like you to share the impact of PSU’s decision on individual workers with PSU administrators by email.

3. Filing an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) against PSU, alleging that PSU has violated labor law by not honoring your expired contract. The hearing has been expedited, given its seriousness. (This ULP is a second ULP in addition to the previous ULP regarding membership data filed in Winter Term, and for which there was a hearing held on 9/9.)

4. The ULP hearing regarding the contract expiration and distribution of benefits is this coming Monday 9/15. Monday’s hearing will mark 45 days since adjuncts in financial crisis expected their Faculty Assistance funds, and 75 days since adjuncts who received Professional Development funds expected theirs.

And now you’re caught up on the latest negotiations. Your Bargaining Team and Executive Council are in continuous conversation on strategy to achieve the best outcome for members and will continue to share updates as they develop. Your union is run on the rank-and-file participation of members like you. If you are interested in learning how to participate in growing your union’s strength, you are strongly encouraged to reach out to your Membership Chair. We are stronger together!

Law & Order PSU

Law & Order PSU: Admin Proposes Putting Adjuncts on “Probation”

Last week’s negotiations hit new lows, as Admin maintained their refusal to honor the terms of PSUFA’s previous contract and presented their bleak vision for PSU’s future with what they termed “probationary adjuncts” working for low pay with no raises and with far less job security than you currently have.

After Admin’s temper tantrum at the bargaining session a week before, PSU once again offered only poison-pill deals as solutions to problems that they have created. The University continues to hold your Professional Development and Adjunct Financial Assistance Funds hostage, so your PSUFA bargaining team returned to the negotiations with a clear priority and question: will the administration agree to honor the contract and release the funds? Admin has violated a cornerstone of labor law—that agreements on wages and benefits persist as status quo once a contract has expired. Indeed, most provisions of contracts are legally required to extend during the hiatus period between a contract ending and a new contract being ratified, which according to some interpretations of the law makes extension agreements unnecessary and potentially sets a dangerous precedent.

You can expect that management is going to frame the options they’ve offered as reasonable. In PSU’s most recent proposal, though, the released funds would be deducted from future benefit amounts, allowing the University to claim balances already negotiated by PSUFA, costing adjuncts nearly $200k. The deal would also subtly eliminate the technology fund. It is your bargaining team’s responsibility to review any offer made by the University for its impact on current and future adjuncts, and the team is urgently working with legal counsel from the American Federation of Teachers to determine the best way to get adjuncts their much needed funds—and to get PSU to honor your contract. Stay tuned for updates.

After deferring on the question of the funds, the administration at long last presented their disappointing responses to your union’s proposals on fair pay and job security. In their impoverished proposal for Article 12 (Salaries and Payroll), which addresses adjunct compensation, the University offered no raises and only the bare-minimum cost-of-living increases —$30 to the minimum per credit rate for adjunct instructional faculty, and under $1 per hour for adjunct researchers.

Admin also unveiled a plan to obliterate the hard-won assignment rights protections that give adjuncts first right of refusal and priority for previously taught courses, the only structure for stability you have as an adjunct at PSU. The University’s cruel reimagining of Article 8 (Appointments and Assignment Rights) would harm adjuncts in the following ways:

• Stripping all adjuncts—even those with assignment rights—to any claim to a minimum course load.

• Changing the definition of assignment rights so it does not give a yearly number of credits, only a limited scheduling priority.

• Forcing all adjuncts in their first three years to be classified as “probationary adjuncts,” regardless of number of credit hours taught. All “probationary adjuncts” would be the equivalent to current term-to-term adjuncts, and they would have no scheduling rights or protections.

• Restricting assignment rights to “specified academic units”—University programs that have a high number of adjuncts, leaving all other adjuncts as permanent “probationary adjuncts.”

• Forcing even those adjuncts with “assignment rights” into contracts that are one academic year or less.

• Confining “assignment rights” to narrowly defined “areas of expertise” and only specific courses taught.

• Removing any Just Cause protection for all adjuncts without “assignment rights.”

As your bargaining team prepares for the next bargaining session on Sept. 12th (RSVP here to observe bargaining), we’d like to bring your questions and reactions on Articles 8 and 12 to the table. Every single adjunct would be impacted by PSU’s regressive approach to course assignments, adjunct contracts, and pay, so what questions do you have for PSU’s team? What would you like to say to the Vice Provost of Faculty Success about the impact of these proposals? Read PSU’s proposals, and then submit your thoughts and questions here for your team to share at the table. 

And don’t forget—the most important action you can take right now to exercise your worker power is to sign up for a Strike School session! Learn the ins and outs of striking, and how we'll win a strong contract, by RSVP’ing here.

August 22nd Bargaining Recap: Fraught, Hot, and ... Triggering?!

In sum, Friday’s bargaining session was fraught, hot, and, apparently for management … triggering?!  

After over a month away from the bargaining table, your PSUFA bargaining team returned to negotiations on Friday. Adjuncts showed up virtually in record numbers to observe Admin’s excuses for continuing to withhold summer Professional Development and Adjunct Financial Assistance Funds, and to hear Management’s proposals on working conditions and economics, none of which Admin produced over the intervening month. 

Your union kicked off the session with its 5th counter-proposal on Article 4, which covers orientation and onboarding for adjuncts. The teams are nearing agreement, and your union maintains that adjuncts deserve reasonable and incentivizing compensation for attending their one-time new hire orientation. 

After presenting Article 4, Admin provided counters on Articles 10 (Grievances) and 11 (Arbitration), and then unveiled their solution to the stalled summer funds in the form of a package of proposals on Articles 13 & 15. Together, these articles cover the adjunct support funds, including Professional Development, Faculty Education, Technology, and Adjunct Financial Assistance. So, rather than signing an agreement to simply and humanely resolve the current issue around summer funds, Admin is using this opportunity not only to enact continued harm on Adjuncts actively waiting on their funds but also to pressure PSUFA into accepting language that would threaten adjunct access to these resources in the future. It’s also unfortunate that Friday’s session was taken up with this distraction manufactured by the University that kept us from meaningfully negotiating over our next CBA. 

A few highlights (or lowlights) from Management's proposal: 

• Complete eradication of the technology fund, which is the only source of codified technology support (such as laptops) for adjuncts, including adjuncts who teach fully asynchronously 

• No increase to the Adjunct Financial Assistance Fund—essentially a de facto reduction to the emergency funds available to adjuncts, given inflation

• No more rollover of unspent funds to subsequent years

• Narrowing of eligibility criteria for qualifying adjuncts

• No mention at all of the $5,000 Minority Serving Institution Fund that PSUFA proposed

After a brief caucus, PSUFA returned with a response directly from adjuncts—in the form of powerful testimony about the impact of the withheld PD and AFAF funds. Your union then outlined, fund by fund, the stark differences between PSU’s proposal, PSUFA’s proposals (from back in May), and the current CBA. Unfortunately, PSUFA never completed the presentation, as Admin grew more and more agitated, eventually interrupting the presentation to provide “corrections,” feign concern about the current AFAF process (which they signed off on in the last round of negotiations), and argue about the technicalities of the unreleased summer funds. 

Eventually, PSUFA pointed out that Admin had been non-responsive to multiple emails and solutions (including a draft memorandum of understanding) because of their vacations, at which point Admin called for an emergency caucus, claimed to be “triggered,” and refused to return to the bargaining table for the rest of the day. Unwilling to address these issues further in front of an open audience, Admin requested a series of sidebar conversations over the next three hours, approaching PSUFA with multiple iterations of a deal to address the summer funds, none of which your union signed because they all contained poison pills affecting your future working conditions. 

Given how little it took for Management to erupt, it’s clear your March on the Boss emails, the turnout of adjuncts at bargaining, and the Unfair Labor Practice your union filed are wearing on Admin. We can’t let the pressure off now; here are three actions to take: 

• Take a 5 minute poll on this issue

• Send (or resend) your March on the Boss email

• RSVP to observe bargaining this coming Friday the 29th, when hopefully we’ll finally receive responses from Admin on core Articles that affect your working conditions. We’d love to know, for example, what kinds of raises they’re proposing!

And don’t forget to sign up for Strike School!

The mystery of the missing economics

During the last negotiation session on July 18, which was fully online, the two parties split the day, exchanging counterproposals on different parts of the contract. The University spent its time sharing a general budget narrative and another counter proposal on adjunct orientation and onboarding. In the second half, your PSUFA team focused on grievances and arbitration—the main ways our contract is enforced. In the last half hour, we discussed the University’s questions about course appointments and your assignment rights. Here are a few bulleted takeaways from the meeting:

• SNAPSHOT: What PSU had characterized as a comprehensive financial presentation at a previous meeting was little more than a high-level fiscal snapshot that included scant substantive information, emphasized their budgetary pessimism, and offered no direct relationship to adjunct faculty.

• ECONOMICS: PSUFA passed a first proposal on wages and benefits back in May, but PSU has yet to respond directly with any economic proposals. When asked when they’d have an economic proposal ready, PSU committed to discussing wages, benefits, and appointments & assignment rights at our next two sessions in late August. Your bargaining team has discussed the possibility that this is a strategic silence on their part. Their narrative of the University's “budget shortfalls” is used as a justification for austerity and to underpay you for your work. Stay tuned next session to see if they make good on their promise to bring numbers to the table.

• ORIENTATION: While we have, after years of effort, finally gotten the University to agree to a centralized paid orientation and onboarding event for new hires, PSU is still creating confusion about how they plan to implement the program and pay faculty in an equitable way. The PSU team seemed to demonstrate a stubborn self-satisfaction that this last counter proposal on Article 4: Orientation and Onboarding, claiming it should be sufficient, since it meets the minimum legal obligation that requires all employers to give unions access to new hires. They seem to think that a centralized orientation run by the Office of Academic Affairs is all that’s needed to give a successful start to new faculty. PSU declines even to encourage (not require) departments to hold adjunct orientations and invite PSUFA to them. As former new hires ourselves, many of us having never received an orientation, we know how crucial it is to meet colleagues, staff, and supervisors at the program level in order to get vital departmental information, be ready for first classes, and better prepared to serve students, and how alienating it is when we haven’t been giving that onboarding. It’s also crucially important for members to know how union protections apply to adjunct instructional and research positions, and the University remains unwilling to elaborate on how to create the kind of robust, supportive start for new faculty that would allow for all of this.

• GRIEVANCE PROCESS: Currently, adjuncts have to go through an overly lengthy five-step grievance process in order to address contract violations. Your union team presented a first counterproposal on the subjects of grievances and arbitration, which included revisions meant to simplify and streamline things. Our presentation was met by just a few questions from the administration, the general tenor of which was decidedly suspicious and judgmental.

• STREAMLINING GRIEVANCE FILING: One surprisingly controversial aspect of our proposal was our suggestion to substitute our outdated and deficient grievance form with a simple list of items that would need to be included when filing a grievance. Our hope is that by eliminating the mandate to use the grievance form we can minimize confusion and make the grievance process more accessible and more efficient for members. It seems like both parties are looking to make changes to the overall process of addressing contract violations when they come up, so we remain open and curious to what PSU will come back with. Hopefully, we can work together to improve a vital aspect of our contract. 

• JOB SECURITY: Adjunct rank, appointments, and job security are covered in Article 8 of the CBA. The University closed out the session by asking questions about PSUFA’s proposal on these important topics. Your PSUFA team really shone, taking turns responding in a collaborative fashion to a range of questions from management, some that were about clarifying aspects of our proposal language and some more foundational or philosophical touching on big topics like why a two-year contract matters. As we struggle for our aspirations to improve our working conditions, the tone of these negotiations have made it evident that it may take some fight to maintain the protections we already have, and certainly to win the contract you deserve. 

• HIRING PRIORITY: Another highlight of the day was PSUFA’s response to PSU questioning our language guaranteeing interviews for qualified adjuncts who apply to open full-time positions at the University. You ranked job security as a top priority in contract negotiations in your bargaining survey last fall, and clear pathways to full time employment are one of the most important ways that security could be achieved. PSU shared concerns that this is a vision for a “pipeline” of sorts that would bump up against their federal hiring obligations like giving priority to veteran applicants or to to meet “diversity” goals. Your team responded by speaking eloquently about the many shapes that equity takes, including the economic precarity of many adjuncts already working at PSU. Nurturing a consistent faculty body, retaining and promoting existing adjuncts, is an important component of what we see as an equitable hiring practice. PSU has a large and diverse pool of qualified faculty already working at the University in adjunct roles. Moreover, continuing to hire historically marginalized people into adjunct positions that are underpaid and precarious is deeply problematic. If PSU truly cares about diversity, it will make hiring faculty into permanent, fairly paid positions with benefits a priority.  

We will be back at the bargaining table August 22nd and 29th, and we anticipate some heat at those sessions as we hear back from the University on weighty proposals that affect your working conditions as adjuncts at PSU. We know that an active membership is a powerful membership so you are urged to join sessions and let PSU know you are watching!

RSVP to observe Friday August 22nd and 29th. 

Solidarity!
Your PSUFA Bargaining Team

Not In Love With Your Langauge

not in love with your language

Our most recent session on July 2nd felt like a showdown in a hot, grey seemingly-airless room.

PSU continued to rely on legal maneuvering to distract from their refusal to discuss issues that are crucial to your working conditions, and to making a safer and more just campus for all. Instead, they remain committed to proposing contract language that reflects the bare minimum of what is required by state and federal law instead of what is best for their students and faculty.

Your union team showed up prepared with pointed questions and you showed up as observers and supporters on both zoom and in-person, filling seats, eating popcorn, and holding signs, and keeping the online chat lively.

Here are a few takeaways from your team:

• Along with their counter proposal to Article 7: Member Rights, PSU presented a formal color-coded letter that declared some of the aspects of our initial proposal ‘permissive subjects’ (a labor law designation meaning they are not mandatory for them to negotiate), and they refused to bargain over them. 

• PSU accused us of being “in love with“ our own proposal language and argued that they “don’t have the authority” to make decisions around some of the issues your union is bringing to the table. If that is the case, PSUFA wants to see management bring the actual decision-makers to the table who can negotiate in good faith around the issues that matter to you. 

• We work at a public institution not a corporation; it is funded by the public and has as part of its mission to “serve the city.” PSU’s refusal to engage with permissive subjects (those both parties may voluntarily agree to negotiate) is a demonstration of the ways in which they are abdicating their responsibilities to the city, to the students and workers at this institution, who deserve respect and high quality jobs and education.

• PSU’s counter proposal to Article 7: Member Rights also included language that attempts to limit our power to grieve in cases of discrimination and retaliation. Grievances are the primary way your union enforces the contract to resolve labor disputes between you and your employer. Under the current political climate, PSU’s intent to restrict our access to the grievance process and their refusal to expand our protections, particularly in a moment of growing authoritarian rule and erosion of legal protections, is dangerous. Continuously pointing to “the law” to justify doing the bare minimum is not in line with the vision they claim to want for PSU.

• PSU passed us a proposal with a crucially substantive typo. In a previous bargaining session admin had proposed language stating the disputes of matters of intellectual property (IP) not resolved by the University’s Copyright Ownership Policy “would” be subject to the grievance process. Then, in their second proposal on 7/2 it said they “would not” be subject to the grievance process. This contradicts the existing University IP policy, betrays their bargaining team’s disorganization, and would have been considered what is called “regressive bargaining”* had they not corrected the mistake. This additional “not” could have considerably limited members’ intellectual property rights and the union's ability to grieve violations of the University's copyright policy. Good thing our team was paying close attention and corrected the mistake. Adjuncts should have copyright protections on their own materials that are just as strong as any a full time faculty member!

All of this underscores their deep lack of care for the people who choose to work, serve, and learn at their institution. It is all the more important for us to keep showing up for each other at the table–demonstrating who we are and what solidarity and care can look like. 

Next session, which is fully online, we will continue to talk about grievances and PSU has promised a presentation on economics, i.e. your wages! 

Join the bargaining session webinar as an observer. We will update this post with the link when it becomes available. Let’s show management we are paying attention!

Solidarity,

Your PSUFA Bargaining Team

*“Regressive bargaining” in the context of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), refers to a situation where an employer makes proposals during collective bargaining that are less favorable to the union than previous proposals, without a valid reason for the change.

Bargaining Recap 6/18/24 Session

Bargaining Recap 6/18/24 Session

Last Wednesday’s session marked four months at the bargaining table. Management kicked off the session with another counter to Article 4 (Orientation and Onboarding), this time extending orientation compensation to include paying adjuncts for the orientation event, as well as any other mandatory onboarding or new-hire trainings (as is their legal responsibility). Because it will now be paid, Management also tightened up language to require adjuncts to attend orientation, and proposed an alternative asynchronous option for adjuncts who cannot attend the live orientation event. Although PSU claims that they want robust onboarding for Adjuncts, they are buckling down on their refusal to keep PSUFA included in departmental level orientations (a right your union has under the current CBA).

Following Article 4, Management fully rejected PSUFA’s Article 6 Academic Freedom proposal from May 5 Your union’s proposal, which developed out of hours of research and consulting with experts and other contracts, included specific language and protections related to teaching, research, and extracurricular speech and activities. Instead of engaging meaningfully with PSUFA’s proposal, management simply copied AAUP’s academic freedom article and maintained the provision in our current contract that states that  academic freedom can not be grieved. Any language on academic freedom that is not grievable has no contractual force and is only symbolic. Your union demands that Adjuncts have real protections for academic freedom, and PSU’s refusal to grant this during the most draconian crackdown on academic freedom in recent history is remarkable! Without tenure (or any other meaningful job security) to protect our professional right to academic freedom, our contract is the only mechanism we have to secure one of the most basic rights without which we can’t do our job.  

After a long caucus, management presented a counter to PSUFA’s May 23 Article 3 proposal (Union Privileges and Limitations). Their presentation highlights two primary areas of disagreement, both of which have to do with the timeliness of the university providing information to PSUFA. Under the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act (PECBA), PSU is legally required to provide PSUFA with contact information for all new hires to the bargaining unit within 10 days, but we disagree about what constitutes as the date of hire (and PSU is regularly in violation of this requirement). Further, while your bargaining team proposed a 30-day timeline for PSU to fulfill information requests (another PECBA requirement for the University), PSU is proposing 14 days just to acknowledge our information request . PSU has still not fulfilled information requests made for bargaining in January of this year, and the language that they propose would only continue to allow them to take a very long time to fulfill requests, slowing down your team’s work and the bargaining process.   

Next, PSUFA presented and opened Article 8 (Appointments and Assignment Rights). This is a dense article, colloquially known as the “job security article.” Following your input in the bargaining survey, your union proposed a slew of changes to strengthen Article 8 and show that we are worth more, including:

• Requiring letters of appointment to be sent out earlier 

• Extending the break in service from one to two years

• Detailing out the acceptable “academic judgement” reasons for a change in an adjunct faculty member’s appointment

• Giving adjuncts the right to request a recalculation of their assignment rights 

We also added a new Article 8 section on recall rights—an important protection for adjuncts who are not renewed. These rights would give adjuncts who experience nonrenewal priority for reappointment before new hires are considered for available positions. Adjuncts with the highest number of accumulated credits would be recalled and offered courses first, in alignment with the priorities adjuncts voiced in the job security straw poll. Further, in an effort to carve out pathways for long-term employment, we proposed language which would require the University to interview adjunct applicants for University positions (over .5FTE) when they meet  the minimum qualifications for the position.

The session concluded with discussion about the upcoming expiration date of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (June 30), and the process of extending the contract to maintain the status quo while bargaining continues. An extension would be crucial not only to maintain adjuncts’ current rights, but also for your union to effectively administer critical adjunct support funds over the summer, including the Professional Development and Adjunct Financial Assistance Funds. Despite extensions being commonplace, Management was not forthcoming about the process, again showing little regard for adjuncts experiencing financial crisis over the summer.

Bargaining Recap 6/4/25

Bargaining Recap 6/4/25

At the last bargaining session on June 4, PSUFA presented counterproposals on two articles: Article 9 (Personnel Files), and Article 4 (Orientation and Onboarding). On Article 9, the parties are nearing a tentative agreement. Our proposals on Article 4, however, continue to be met with resistance from management. Both sides agreed that adjuncts should be compensated for attending orientation. PSU seems to assume that this would make orientation events mandatory, but that word has been nowhere in their proposals. Your bargaining team agrees that pay would incentivize orientation attendance, but the parties cannot come to a mutual agreement until PSU clarifies their position on "mandatory" versus “incentivized” attendance. ] PSU also revealed that the 2 hours of pay for orientation is meant to cover a slew of newly required trainings. Shockingly, PSU admitted that the two hours they’re offering to pay Adjuncts for orientation would be insufficient if all these other trainings are to be lumped in as well. Other issues that came up in discussions around Article 4 centered on researcher inclusion and department-specific trainings, which your union will continue to fight for in upcoming bargaining sessions.  

PSU then presented its proposals on Articles 10 (Grievances) and 11 (Arbitration). These are arguably the most important articles in your CBA—without strong provisions for grieving violations to your contract, it is effectively meaningless. Management claimed that their proposed changes were intended only to capture what’s already happening in practice, and to eliminate outdated language. But some changes in their proposal would be quite consequential—and detrimental—to adjuncts. Currently, grievances can go up to the level of university president, but PSU has proposed eliminating that step. This could theoretically make the entire process much quicker, but PSU has not proposed a shorter timeline. Instead, they’ve redistributed the days so that throughout the process THEY get more time to respond to a grievance. PSU also proposed new language that would restrict the filing of a group grievance to adjuncts under the supervisor, making it impossible to file a grievance for a violation that affects adjuncts across the university, like a pay calculation error. 

Notably, PSU proposed language that would prohibit an adjunct from grieving what it deems are issues of “academic judgment.” In the CBA, academic judgment is defined as the judgment of supervisors and administrators concerning determinations, recommendations, decisions, criteria, and information to be used with respect to reappointment, advancement of members, and with respect to matters of curricula and educational policy. In many ways, academic judgment has become a blanket excuse to justify any decisions made by departments about adjunct appointments, and to undermine valid adjunct grievances. Your union won’t agree to this! Over and over, PSUFA asked for scenarios that might exemplify the kinds of grievances PSU wants to limit. However, management could not provide any.

Next, PSU proposed new language in Article 11 (Arbitration), which covers the legal process that takes place when a grievance is not able to be resolved through the grievance process. Arbitration involves a neutral third party who reviews the facts of the case and renders a binding decision to the parties. PSU’s proposal attempts to further hamstring adjuncts and PSUFA by burdening PSUFA with the entire cost of arbitration, in the event that an arbiter determines a grievance shouldn’t have advanced because it was ultimately ruled a matter of academic judgment. PSUFA has a shared interest in streamlining the grievance process, but these proposals appear to worsen the conditions for adjuncts seeking redress.

The session ended by hammering out, in broad strokes, the agenda for the next session, which will be on Wednesday, June 18. Some of the union’s most important proposals are currently held up because the university hasn’t answered requests for information that informs those proposals. The management team awkwardly tried to blame this on the fact that PSUFA has filed an unfair labor practice against PSU for exactly this problem: not providing requested information, which is required by the current CBA. Management insists that the data have been shared and that PSU has no obligation to analyze the data provided, but the union can see clearly that the data are of poor quality, containing demonstrable falsehoods and omissions. The data that have been provided are not reliable, and this presents a huge barrier to good faith bargaining going forward.

Don’t forget to join your team and your fellow adjuncts for the next bargaining session, Wednesday, June 18 at RMNC 316 and online from 12-5pm! If you attend in person you’ll get a PSUFA t-shirt and a treat to help fuel you for the whole session. Click here for more details and to RSVP!

Bargaining Recap 5/23/25 Session

Bargaining Recap 5/23/25 Session

PSUFA and PSU bargaining teams met to exchange proposals on Friday May 23. Much of the session was devoted to your PSUFA bargaining team presenting a robust economic proposal that centered on equal pay for equal work and included a slew of creative initiatives such as a shared sick leave program, opportunities for paid adjunct sabbaticals, additional compensation for adjuncts who support marginalized or minoritized students, and raises for length of service! Read on for more about what we mean when we say, “We are worth more!”

Students, members, and community allies came to watch, share reflections and snacks during caucus, and hold signs. You show us what the power of solidarity looks like! Your presence made the anemic attendance on management’s side of the table and their lack of meaningful engagement with PSUFA’s proposals even more pronounced.

The day began quietly, with multiple members of the management team absent for various reasons. PSUFA started with a counter proposal on Article 3 on union rights. Your union’s bargaining team continues to hold fast that the no strike clause in this article is so broad and expansive as to infringe on adjuncts’ constitutional rights to protest. In response, the team has proposed significantly pared down—and less draconian—language. Your bargaining team also continues to hold fast that PSU must make data necessary for grievances and bargaining available to your union within 30 days. PSU has taken advantage of the vague language currently in our contact and has not fulfilled information requests dating back to December 2024 and January 2025, thereby denying PSUFA valuable information for its proposals. Finally, PSUFA agreed to PSU’s proposal to furnish one bulletin board to the union, which would replace our bulletin board in Smith (MIA since 2020–let us know if you see the PSUFA bulletin board!). Your team proposed FMH as the new home for a new PSUFA bulletin board. 

Next, PSU’s Director of Labor Relations briefly presented counterproposals on Article 9 (personnel files) and Article 4 (orientation and onboarding). Your team was pleased to see that management had thought through and agreed to some of PSUFA’s ideas, like the importance of hosting orientation events each term rather than once a year for a workforce as contingent as ours. This is an important win for adjuncts! The teams also discussed and defined the nature of future collaboration on materials and programs for adjunct faculty onboarding. The PSUFA team spoke again to how vital the voices of adjuncts are in the planning of these events and procedures. There will have to be more discussion of this topic to get to a resolution that will result in a new-hire program that will actually serve adjuncts. PSU, for the first time, agreed to compensate faculty for orientation (another big win for adjuncts!), but it will take more creative problem-solving to find a way to do so while also giving faculty a chance to receive the information they need before the term is already well underway.

Finally, PSUFA’s bargaining team presented proposals on salaries and the PSUFA benefits funds (Articles 12, 14 & 15) [link to articles]. With these proposals, your bargaining team continues to fight for equal pay for equal work and to fight against PSU’s two-tiered system in which part-time faculty members get compensated significantly less for the same instructional work as their full-time counterparts. Getting adjuncts pay parity would be an important step in ending this two-tier system and ensuring a better quality education for your students! To arrive at the proposed pay rates that would actually constitute equal pay for equal work, your bargaining team used the minimum salary of a full-time Senior Instructor at PSU as the basis for their calculations. The team also proposed increasing course cancellation and late appointment fees, increasing the hourly pay for curriculum development, mentoring, and special projects, and introduced a system for adjuncts to receive regular pay increases. Currently, PSU remains one of the only public institutions of higher education in the state of Oregon that doesn’t have any mechanism for its adjuncts to advance in pay. This means that the vast majority of adjuncts are paid at the minimum rate–even if they have been teaching for decades. This is deeply unfair!

In addition to salary increases, the team worked hard to expand the benefits available to adjuncts through proposals for sharing sick leave, bereavement leave (which adjuncts do not currently have through PSU whereas full-time employees do), employer pick-up of the 1% Oregon Paid Leave tax, and a smaller premium for PERS eligible adjuncts who obtain their health insurance through PSU. 

Your team also presented proposals for free PSU classes for adjuncts, more money for the professional development fund, the technology fund and the adjunct faculty assistance fund, and a new benefits fund that would compensate adjuncts for work they do to enhance PSU’s mission as a minority-serving institution. Your team believes that PSU has a responsibility to invest in and support their adjunct faculty through these funds. This is the only way to provide equitable access to a quality education for your students! 

PSU administration remained mostly quiet during the PSUFA team’s presentation of the article proposals on salaries and benefits and asked no substantive questions. This is very surprising given that PSUFA’s proposals would radically change adjunct faculty working conditions and student learning conditions. One of the few questions they asked your bargaining team was whether the team had costed out their proposal. This felt like a tactical inquiry intended to cast your team as unserious and a continued obfuscation of what really matters: fair pay for adjuncts as the essential condition for a quality education for students. Adjuncts make learning happen, and if PSU needs to adjust its budget to be more in line with its mission, then that is the administration's responsibility.

PSU seems to be employing a common management tactic at the table, which is to blame worker demands for fair pay for bankrupting the university. We want to remind PSU and our fellow adjuncts: Adjunct faculty salaries and benefits made up less than 3% of PSU’s operational budget (while teaching over a third of student credit hours) in AY 2018 through AY 2021 (we are waiting on more current budgetary data and will share that as soon as it is available). And despite PSU’s budget deficit narrative, administrators have never forgone raises. Whatever total price tag our economic proposals may have in the end, we remain the university’s cheapest source of labor and we have a resounding message for admin: WE ARE WORTH MORE! 

PSUFA Statement on Spring 2025 Non-Renewal Notices

PSUFA Statement on Spring 2025 Non-Renewal Notices

The PSUFA CBA Article 8.3.5 mandates a timeline for reappointments. During Winter Term, your department should have inquired about your availability and desire to teach during AY 25-26, no later than week 5. This term (Spring 2025) all adjuncts should have received a notice of intent to renew or not renew an appointment for AY 25-26 by the end of week 5. Further details about course assignments and schedule for the coming academic year will be communicated to faculty by July 15.

Your Spring Term intent letter will either confirm the intent of the department to renew your appointment, confirm that the department does not intend to renew your appointment, and in some cases you may receive a letter that states that the department is unable to confirm their intent at the moment. This typically means that they have not worked out the schedule for AY 25-26 yet. To see the specific contract language, see Article 8 in the CBA.

Last year PSU sent similar non-renewal notices to many adjuncts in the middle of 2 year contracts, and PSUFA immediately filed a grievance for all adjuncts on two year contracts whose assignment rights per Article 8 Section 3.6 had been violated. PSU refused to process the grievances, falsely claiming that group grievances--a grievance filled for more than one person and including unnamed individuals-- are not allowed in our Collective Bargaining Agreement. This claim ignored the fact that many group grievances have been filed and processed in the past.

Nearly a year after the university's response and refusal to process the group grievance, your union and PSU were scheduled for an arbitration hearing last week that would decide on this matter. A day before the arbitration hearing, PSU settled with your union agreeing to the processing of the group grievance. This is an important win for PSUFA who fought the university for nearly a year to protect our right to file group grievances!

The next step is an arbitration hearing on the substantive issue: whether PSU violated the assignment rights for adjuncts who were not renewed in the middle of two year contracts. If you are in the middle of a two year contract and have recently received a non-renewal notice, please reach out to us and stay tuned as we head into arbitration again in mid-August. The result of that hearing will have a direct impact on every adjunct facing non-renewal on a 2 year contract this year. 

Bargaining Recap: 5/2/25 Session

Bargaining Recap: 5/2/25 Session

PSU's "Unprofessional" Behavior at the Bargaining Table Shocks Adjunct and Student Observers

Last Friday’s bargaining session was HOT (figuratively, yes, plus the bargaining room didn’t have a/c). Student observers were shocked at how “unprofessional” PSU’s team was. While PSU administrators were busy lobbing insults at Adjuncts and using legal subterfuge to disqualify negotiations over our essential working conditions, Adjuncts were busy presenting bold, innovative proposals on Member Rights, Academic Freedom, and Personnel Files with a real vision for “equitable access to a quality education,” PSU’s purported mission. Read on for details about these exciting proposals that address the pressing concerns of Adjuncts and the entire community at PSU-–from the use of AI technologies in education, to the climate catastrophe, to the explosion of online courses, to the detentions and deportations of our colleagues and students.

Whereas PSU’s team repeatedly tells Adjuncts that it’s not obligated to offer them anything beyond what is mandated by law, your bargaining team is making proposals that would result in better working conditions for faculty, better learning conditions for your students–and even in a more democratic society. Some of our student observers with YDSA were so upset about what they heard at the table that they are now circulating a petition to other students demanding that PSU administration give adjuncts stronger academic freedom protections! 

Given the importance of academic freedom to PSUFA members, and the current attacks on higher education, PSUFA invited our full-time faculty colleague Jennifer Ruth, Professor of Film Studies, as a subject matter expert to elaborate on how crucial protections to academic freedom are to the health and integrity of our university. Ruth is the co-author of the 2022 book It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom. 

Adjunct faculty are highly concerned about academic freedom (a brief straw poll of bargaining unit members confirmed this last week), and Ruth emphasized the importance of codifying academic freedom in collective bargaining agreements as a measure that protects both faculty and the university. 

Even so, immediately following the robust academic freedom presentation (and in front of a crowd of faculty, staff, and student supporters), Admin’s team thanked Ruth, vaguely mentioned a commitment to academic freedom and then immediately quashed the proposal, by denying PSUFA’s right to bargain over Article 6. This denial was intended to shock the bargaining team and observers.  “Academic freedom matters to students as well” one student angrily proclaimed after the session. 

Admin’s denial of PSUFA’s right to open the article on Academic Freedom is rooted in an ongoing technical dispute between the teams over the commencement date of bargaining, which has implications related to the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act timeline (quick explanation here). And while PSUFA declared their intention to open the Academic Freedom article (as well as many others) back when bargaining started, PSU did not, showing that Admin is satisfied with the limited protections in the current contract, even while threats to academic freedom on American campuses intensify. (AAUP national recently found that more than one in three faculty say they have less academic freedom today when it comes to teaching content without any interference, and speaking freely when participating in shared governance!) Plus, while PSU knew days in advance that PSUFA intended to propose changes to Article 6, the team saved their bombshell refusal for the bargaining table. What does it mean that PSU felt compelled to announce to a room of Adjuncts and PSU community observers that it will block Adjuncts from bargaining over academic freedom on technical grounds? Imagine what kind of university not only doesn’t want to bargain over academic freedom protections for contingent faculty but flaunts this!  

After a brief caucus, heated discussion continued and culminated with Admin accusing the PSUFA team of “'selective hearing'" (and right before we shared our nondiscrimination clause, too!). These comments were so egregious that even students shared their concern with our team likening management to a schoolyard bully.  

Eventually, PSUFA presented a reimagined Article 7 on Member Rights. Your team has been working for weeks on this proposal which included demands to expand protection from discrimination, new language on intellectual property rights and privacy, protections against the university replacing our labor with Artificial Intelligence technologies, and new rights around access to course materials and other support for Adjunct faculty. Your team was proud to make demands for the safety of our entire PSU and planetary community by calling for a weapons- and fossil fuel- free campus and for PSU’s status as a sanctuary campus to be enshrined in our contract. Throughout the presentation of the proposal, the PSUFA bargaining team consistently expressed concern for student well-being. Because basic needs insecurity deeply impacts student learning, the team also called on the University to adequately resource critical campus services and programs for students, like the Women's Resource Center, the Queer Resource Center, the Disability Resource Center, and PSU CARES. 

As we gear up for the next bargaining session we need adjunct testimony at the bargaining table, so sign up here! Join your colleagues and students on Friday May 23 from 12-5 to observe bargaining and tell PSU that We Are Worth More!

Bargaining Recap 4/18/25 Session

Your all-star bargaining team was back at it last week, negotiating for a great contract for all PSU adjuncts on Friday, 4/18! We had both adjuncts and students in attendance in person and on zoom, and your support was key in showing admin that we mean business. In case you missed it, team member Alison Lutz brings us this snappy recap:

“Last Friday’s bargaining session began with continued conversation about accurately recording changes in the proposals we exchange at the table. PSUFA caught several instances in which PSU had altered the original language in our CBA without notating the changes, making it appear as if management’s new language is the agreed upon language.  PSU acknowledged their mistakes were violations of the procedure we had agreed to in our ground rules and recommitted to do better moving forward. 

After a brief caucus, PSU asked several questions in regard to PSUFA’s Article 3 (Union Rights, Privileges & Limitations)  proposal from 4/4. There was specific attention and concern from Administration about your union’s proposal to add 3 dedicated PSUFA-specific bulletin boards on campus, to accompany the one board our union contract provides for in SMSU. This bulletin board has been MIA since the pandemic and despite efforts to locate the board, which used to be on the 2nd floor of Smith, by PSUFA members, the board has not been found. The Vice Provost of Faculty Success did seem to be aware of its disappearance but not of its current whereabouts. Why do we need more dedicated bulletin boards? To keep you, our members and allies, informed of our various initiatives and activities. Why does PSU seem to be so skeptical about us having bulletin boards? The reason for admin’s attitude towards this issue is still unclear, but worth keeping in mind as we move forward. 

PSUFA had the opportunity to present our most recent Article 4 counterproposal. We reemphasized our commitment to a quarterly Adjunct Orientation, better Onboarding and pay for attending orientation at both the university and department/college level as being fundamental to adjunct inclusion and collaboration between the University and the Union. PSU spent the remainder of the session insisting that Orientation needs to be streamlined (reduced) and not collaboratively led and repeatedly stating that they are fulfilling their legal obligation. In an echo of their approach to cancelling courses with “low enrollment,” PSU suggested that facilitating orientation for a small number of adjuncts was not worth their time.

Our takeaway? For this session, we give PSU a C+ grade as an employer. The current management strategy calls to mind a student who is looking to just pass the class and move on, rather than striving to excel or go beyond the bare minimum.”

Make sure you don’t miss out on all the action at our next session! Join as an observer, either in-person or remote, and help your union hold PSU accountable for their role in creating great teaching and learning environment by negotiating a fair adjunct contract. The next session will take place on Friday, May 2, from 12-4pm, followed by a post-session team huddle 15 minutes after the close of negotiations. RSVP here! And email bargaining@psufa.org if you have questions or want to find out about more ways to get involved with your union.

Visa Revocations at PSU: What to Know and Resources to Help

Visa Revocations at PSU: What to Know and Resources to Help

Artwork by Pete Railand, courtesy Just Seeds

On Thursday, April 10, PSU President Ann Cudd sent a university-wide email alerting our community to the alarming news that several current and former PSU students had their visas revoked by the Trump administration. The email read, in part:

“​​This morning we learned that the federal government terminated the visa eligibility for two current PSU students and one recent graduate. We have not been informed of the cause for this action and our Office of International Student and Scholar Services is working to connect the impacted students with the necessary resources to determine a path forward.”

The message went on to offer the following campus resources:

• FAQ on Immigration Rights 

• Student Legal Services 

• Federal Actions page for ongoing updates 

• Student Mental Health Services and PSU Employee EAP

Additional resources not included in PSU’s email that may be useful include the DREAMER Resource Center, this Rapid Response Guide from ACLU Oregon, and this Know Your Rights Guide from AFT-Oregon.

Click through to read the full email from Pres. Cudd. 

PSUFA and our parent union, AFT-Oregon, stand with our international faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students and reject the Trump administration’s widespread intimidation tactics and outright unlawful conduct in detaining legal United States residents and visiting international students and scholars under specious accusations.

We have heard initial reports of members of other locals in Oregon having their visas revoked, and will share more information as it becomes available. If this is happening to you or another member of our adjunct bargaining unit, or if you are concerned you may be targeted for this kind of action, please reach out to your union so we can connect you with support and resources. 

As public employees, PSU faculty and staff have a responsibility to protect student information. We are not allowed to give out any information about students even to family members, and importantly not to ICE. Whether ICE can enter a campus to take enforcement action depends on whether the area is considered public. Federal immigration enforcement officers can enter public areas without a warrant, just like any member of the public. However, officers cannot access nonpublic areas of campus without permission from an authorized campus official. Institutional employees are not required to grant access, provide documents or assist federal immigration officers in entering nonpublic areas of the campus. Federal immigration enforcement agents may not enter areas that are private without a legally sufficient judicial warrant. Read more about what’s legal and how to protect yourself in this guide from AFT-Oregon. 

AFT-Oregon maintains a legal defense fund in the event that a matter affecting a union member reaches or is expected to reach legal or administrative proceedings. PSUFA can connect adjuncts with this fund when appropriate, please let us know if you would like more information about this resource. 

PSUFA is calling all adjuncts to join faculty, staff, and students from across the city to fight against the deportations and take back our universities! Join us from 12-1 on Thursday April 17 in Montgomery Plaza as will call for the protection of workers and students, the end of genocide and repression, and demand that our university's administration not comply with fascism!

Spring Into Action With Your Union!

Get ready to Spring Into Action with a week of organizing activities, April 14-18! Join your fellow PSUFA members all next week and take action to make a difference—from bargaining for a better contract to protecting our nation’s education from political attacks, there are multiple days and ways for every adjunct to get involved.

Maybe you want to observe bargaining and eat cake with your colleagues? Or perhaps you’d like to discuss political action methods in a reading group. You could attend a rally and teach-in on national higher ed issues, or if you can’t come to in-person events join the bargaining Zoom or share your story about being an adjunct. However you choose to participate, you’ll be contributing your power and voice as a worker to make things better for all adjuncts at PSU, and our students and communities too!

Check out what’s going on in the schedule of events below and be part of the action! Questions? Email psufa.martha@gmail.com or organizing@psufa.org with questions and additional ways to get involved.

SPRING INTO ACTION EVENTS APRIL 14-18

Wednesday, April 16: Labor & Lit Reading Group, FMH B134, 1:30-2:30pm RSVP HERE

Thursday, April 17: HELU National Day of Action Rally, multiple campus locations, all day, DETAILS HERE

Friday, April 18: Let Us Eat Cake! Bargaining observation and cake with colleagues, RMNC Rm 316, 11:30-1:30, details and RSVP HERE

Spring 2025 New Adjunct Orientation, Office of Academic Innovation, SMU, 3-5pm, RSVP HERE

ALL WEEK LONG: Submit your testimony for bargaining, link to form HERE

MORE EVENT DETAILS BELOW

Wednesday, April 16

Labor & Lit Reading Group FMH B134 1:30-2:30pm

Labor & Lit returns for Spring Term! The next session of PSUFA's political education and reading group will focus on The Role of Disruption in Social Change, and takes place on Wednesday, April 16 from 1:30-2:30 in our union office at FMH. Facilitator and UNST Adjunct David Osborn shares this preview of what to expect:

"Please join us to discuss how disruptive action fuels social change. We'll look at a variety of examples, drawn from the labor movement, of how disruption works as an essential part of creating change. We'll also look at examples of how labor unions have taken disruptive action in solidarity with other movements. Please join us especially if you have some reservations about disruption or questions. The very point of disruptive action is to unsettle and disturb the status quo and we'll create a container to talk about our experiences."

When: Wednesday, April 16, 1:30-2:30 pm

Where: FMH B134 RSVP HERE!

THURSDAY APRIL 17

HELU National Day of Action, Multiple Campus Locations, all day

Join campus labor unions and student groups for a city-wide rally of higher education workers, students and organizers as part of a National Day of Actionto take back our education system. The event is being organized by a large coalition of organizations, including sponsorship by AFT-Oregon, our parent union, and the national coalition Higher Education Labor United, of which PSUFA is a member.

Find out more about the schedule of events for the day, which begins at noon and runs until 5:30pm, on our blog. And check out the national campaign website for more information on the goals of this nationwide action. More details to come!

WHEN: April 17th, 2025 12:00-5:30

WHERE: Montgomery Plaza, adjacent to Karl Miller Center, at SW 6th & Harrison St.

Friday, April 18

Let Us Eat Cake! Observe Bargaining With Colleagues and Cake, RMNC Rm 316, 11:30-1:30 plus bonus post bargaining team huddle

Want to have your cake and get a great contract too? Show up to support your all-star bargaining team and enjoy a sweet treat with your fellow adjuncts!

Come eat cake and observe bargaining Friday, April 18, 11:30am-1:30pm at Richard & Maurine Neuberger Center (Corner of 4th and Market) Room 316, Mt. Rainer Room. Bargaining is followed by a 15-minute huddle & recap.

WHEN: Friday, April 18, 11:30am-1:30pm

WHERE: Richard & Maurine Neuberger Center (Corner of 4th and Market) Room 316, Mt. Rainer Room

Details and RSVP HERE!

Spring 2025 New Adjunct Orientation, Office of Academic Innovation, SMU, 3-5pm

The PSU/PSUFA new adjunct orientation will be held Friday April 18, 2025 from 3:00-5:00pm in the Office of Academic Innovation (OAI) in the Smith Memorial Union (mezzanine level) and on Zoom. Please RSVP to receive a calendar invite to this event.

During the new adjunct orientation, you will learn about important PSU resources for adjuncts and part-time researchers. The PSUFA Executive Council will also share important information about your contract, and the benefits and support provided by your union. We will also be available for your questions about where to access the services, equipment and support you need to ensure a successful experience working at Portland State.

This event is geared toward adjuncts who are new to the PSU academic community. However, all adjunct instructors and researchers are welcome to attend.

WHEN: Friday, April 18, 3-5pm

WHERE: Office of Academic Innovation (OAI) in the Smith Memorial Union (mezzanine level) and on Zoom RSVP HERE

ALL WEEK LONG

Submit Your Bargaining Testimony

Your union has fought for your voice to be heard at the negotiating table and needs you to share your stories and expertise about adjunct working conditions at PSU. Please sign up to offer testimony at bargaining! Our collective voice is what makes us powerful.

Use this form to submit your testimony to your bargaining team. Members may present their own testimonies during bargaining sessions or a bargaining team member can read your testimony if you prefer to remain anonymous.

Email Vasiliki at psufa.vasiliki@gmail.com with questions.

PSUFA Joins Local Unions to Keep Portland Police Association Out of Labor Council

PSUFA Joins Local Unions to Keep Portland Police Association Out of Labor Council

​Sign the petition today to keep our labor organizing safe!

PSUFA’s Executive Council has joined with other unions to oppose the proposed admission of the Portland Police Association to the Northwest Oregon Labor Council. In a statement released as part of a petition action, unions and rank-and-file members explained the reasons PPA should not be allowed to join the council:

“We, the undersigned labor union rank-and-file and union officers of NW Oregon, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with delegates opposing the Portland Police Association's (PPA) entrance into the NW Oregon Labor Council.

Historically and to the present, police serve as strike-breakers across the nation and in Portland, always siding with bosses against organized workers—with the police association lining up with their commanders.

The effort to bring the PPA into the Labor Council represents a total repudiation of core labor values, which are grounded in solidarity, racial & social justice, and collective action.

Instead, the police association's conduct and track record speaks to their self-interest at the expense of other workers, threats and violence against pro-worker public officials, and a resolute commitment to avoid the type of accountability that no other public employee has.”

PSUFA Chair of Political Action Erica Thomas co-authored an in-depth discussion of this issue on The Thorn, the blog of Portland DSA. Thomas notes the strong support the petition has received so far, sharing that the petition “is approaching 400 signatures in less than one week; signatories are rank-and-file members of 34+ local unions from the building trades to the service sector — public workers at the City of Portland and beyond.” Read the entire blog post for a deep dive into why PPA wants to join NOLC now, and why it should matter to workers.

Do you want to keep our labor council safe for workers and their unions? Sign the petition to reject PPA’s admission to NOLC now!

Bargaining Recap 4/4/25

Negotiations for a new contract for adjuncts at PSU continue, and your incredible bargaining team is bringing their A game to the table! Here with the latest session recap is bargaining team member Anna Gray:

“At our Friday, April 4th bargaining session things started to heat up! 

After a brief discussion of a PSUFA counter proposal on Article 18: (Notices and Communications), PSU shared a counter proposal for Article 9 (Personnel Files), which led to a discussion about University transparency. 

PSUFA also opened Article 3 (Union Rights & Privileges), with a strong presentation that stressed how essential Adjuncts and our Union are to the University. Citing evidence of how unionization helps foster a more engaged faculty body and helps educational institutions function more effectively, PSUFA proposed changes that would allow our Union to operate and communicate with members more easily. Our proposed language also expanded important protections for Adjuncts, like adjusting our “no strike clause” in an effort to guard free speech and the right to protest, as well as the right for Adjuncts to refuse extra work if other faculty or staff go on strike. 

PSU then responded with a proposal for Article 4 (Orientation and Onboarding). They chose to entirely reject the proposal PSUFA gave on this topic last session and instead composed an entirely new proposal. In comparison to the robust presentation and expansive proposal that PSUFA gave on March 21, which included renaming Article 4 as Adjunct Orientation, Onboarding, and Inclusion and offered multiple provisions for onboarding adjuncts and integrating them into the PSU community, the University’s proposal was anemic. 

PSU’s proposal would strip your Union of the right to be placed on the agenda at  Departmental Orientations and lacked detail about how Orientation would be offered outside of Fall Term. Given that Article 4 functions as one of the most substantive articles related to the meaningful inclusion of Adjuncts into the campus community – with much potential for reimagining and codifying Adjunct integration and collaboration – PSU’s Article 4 proposal offered no creativity or real vision. At the table, PSU’s team talked eagerly about putting orientation material on Canvas and did not address the concerns expressed by PSUFA about adjunct isolation and the need for broader inclusion in the University. PSU did agree to PSUFA’s proposed payment structure for New Hires to attend Orientation. This would end the long-standing problem of orientation for new hires as a form of unpaid labor.

Your bargaining team spent the rest of the session scrutinizing how the University’s proposal could actually lead to practices that increase faculty success & foster a sense of inclusion for part-time faculty. More to come on this in the future! 

We had observers join us both online and in-person for this session. Thank you to those who attended, keep it up! Observing bargaining puts pressure on Admin and shows our power and solidarity. Our next bargaining session is scheduled for April 18 from 9:30-1:30. Your team will present contract language to make our entire university community more safe and to protect teaching and learning as human-centered activities. Once again, your team will use these negotiations to promote a quality education for our students!”