The Pressure Is On!
On Friday, July 28th, more than 50 PSU adjuncts, students, staff, full-time faculty, and community members descended upon our bargaining session in the Karl Miller Center with signs demanding a FAIR CONTRACT NOW!
This demonstration followed the unprecedented number of adjuncts who took the time to respond to PSUFA’s poll gauging our union membership’s willingness to take collective action in order to achieve a better contract. The results of the poll unambiguously demonstrated a desire to unite in some form of collective action if necessary for the contract we deserve.
THANK YOU to everyone who attended our demonstration, and thank you especially to our community allies at Portland Jobs with Justice and Portland DSA! PSU Administration was visibly rattled by the unified call for a fair contract and the PSUFA Bargaining Team was bolstered by your support. The University leadership is counting on their adjuncts being quiescent and disorganized, but we are not going along with their plans for us!
Let’s continue putting the pressure on at our next bargaining session, tentatively scheduled for August 18th. Keep an eye on the PSUFA Calendar and your email for time and location. Please stay tuned for more information about future actions and continue to follow updates on our blog. The fight is not over and we adjuncts will keep demanding a fair contract until we get one—sending the message to Administration loud and clear that we are worth more and that our students deserve more!
The PSUFA Bargaining Team’s parting message to Administration on Friday was simple: We are willing to continue negotiating, but the total allocation must be significantly larger—our bargaining unit will not accept the current allocation.
Here’s where we stand at the bargaining table on our proposed increase to the minimum per credit rate and a cost of living adjustment (COLA):
For a more detailed outline of all the proposals put forth by PSUFA and how PSU has responded to them, click here to download a comprehensive comparison PDF.
The University’s central message to adjuncts at the table is and has been: We are in a $20 million hole and we only have an increase of $3.3 million (with an additional as yet undefined $0.2 million allotment) to give you. The budget crisis the University has found itself in should not mean perpetuating our part-time poverty. Adjuncts did not create this crisis, and its solution should not be laid at the feet of PSU’s already underpaid faculty. An increase of $3.3 million (plus $0.2 million) is simply not enough for the more than 1,000 adjuncts who make this university function by teaching nearly 40% of student credit hours.
Your union’s current proposal costs an additional $5.5 million in the first year and an additional $2.5 million in the second year (for a total of $8 million). This amount would increase our share of the total university budget from 3.1% to merely 4.3%—a modest percentage when compared to—again—the nearly 40% of instructional hours at PSU that would not be possible without our labor.
PSUFA will continue to bargain to achieve a fair contract. The Bargaining Team has made significant moves toward the Administration's position in an effort to find a compromise that is fair and just. By claiming a fixed pool of money to work with, and institing that we can only negotiate how to move the money around, the University is stalling the process.
The Bargaining Team has and will continue to demand that the Administration across the table go to the Board of Trustees and the President to find more in the budget to allocate for our bargaining unit. Every budgetary decision is a choice that reflects the values of PSU and the University is actively and shamefully choosing to not invest sufficiently in the dignity and survival of its adjunct faculty by not providing us a larger amount to negotiate with.