On Dec. 20, 2011, negotiations over full-time faculty contracts between the Portland State chapter of the American Association of University Professors and the PSU administration ended in mediation. After a single day of mediation, both parties came to a tentative agreement, and a proposed contract was recommended for ratification by the PSU-AAUP’s collective bargaining team.
On Dec. 20, 2011, negotiations over full-time faculty contracts between the Portland State chapter of the American Association of University Professors and the PSU administration ended in mediation. After a single day of mediation, both parties came to a tentative agreement, and a proposed contract was recommended for ratification by the PSU-AAUP’s collective bargaining team.
While the compensation package—which includes up to a 4.1 percent salary increase for faculty over the next two years—is one of the best comparative agreements in the state, some faculty members and students involved in the negotiation process are left with questions. PSU-AAUP representatives repeatedly addressed the university’s sizable budget surplus and remain unsatisfied with the answers they received from the administration.
Mary King, economics professor and chief negotiating officer for PSU-AAUP, questions the surplus when the OUS guidelines suggest serving a significantly smaller amount of funds.
“For the prior year, ending last June, we had a surplus of $54 million. That’s nearly 20 percent of operating money, and it’s money that could be spent directly into the classroom,” King said. “The guideline is between 5 and 15 percent. Why, in a year where we’re starving and we have the highest numbers of students we’ve ever had, and we’re cranking up tuition every year?”
The administration, however, believes it has explained the intricacies of the budget reserve and why it wasn’t possible to allocate those funds toward faculty compensation. Carol Mack, vice provost for academic personnel and leadership development, who represented the administration during the collective bargaining process, does not understand why the surplus continues to be a source of discontent for some PSU-AAUP members.
“I’m not sure, actually, because Monica Rimai [vice president for finance and administration] did attend one of our sessions and explained it to them,” Mack said. Additionally, Mack stated that Rimai attended a faculty senate session wherein the budget was examined via PowerPoint slides, which are available on the budget website.
“We did make an effort for members to understand the constraints of a reserve like that,” Mack said.
Students, who were granted a place at the bargaining table for the first time in several years, echoed the faculty’s dissatisfaction with how the administration explained the surplus. History senior Kira Lesley was among three student representatives appointed by ASPSU to participate in the negotiation process.
“It was a big issue throughout that the teachers would bring up the surplus in the budget and the administration would respond by constantly saying, ‘We have no money,’” Lesley said. “Even if what they mean is, ‘We don’t have enough money for it to be prudent to spend more money on X, Y or Z,’ it’s a dishonesty to say, ‘We’re broke, we don’t have money,’ when there’s actually a big surplus.”
“It’s not that complicated,” Lesley added.
Another issue that remains unresolved is the administration’s increasing reliance on professors who are employed under a fixed-term contract, rather than a tenure-track position. The union expressed concerns about the lack of job security for fixed-term professors and the possible ramifications for PSU students. The administration acknowledges a reliance on fixed-term faculty, but values the flexibility those contracts bring to staffing decisions.
“Right now we have a pretty high percentage of fixed-term faculty that are on two-year contracts,” Mack said. “It does show that we rely on our fixed-term faculty; we value their work, but our position was that in these economic times we need to have the flexibility so that we’re able to hire the most appropriate person for the class and to serve student needs. And so the more people that we have on longer-term contracts, that takes some of that flexibility away.”
To King, this is another example of an unsatisfactory answer.
“The line at Portland State was, ‘We can’t give up any flexibility,’” said King, who has been a professor in PSU’s economics department since 1992. “That’s just lazy management. It just says, ‘We don’t have to so we won’t.’ But it’s ridiculous to think that an institution of this size can’t do the kind of advanced planning to know that they need people on a regular basis.”
Lesley believes this issue is indicative of a lack of respect for the work and lives of professors.
“We don’t value educators enough in our society,” Lesley said. “We hear all this rhetoric about valuing teachers and valuing education, but that sentiment is not reflected in the day-to-day operations of universities. There’s no job security, they don’t get paid enough for their level of education, and they don’t know year to year whether or not they’re going to get hired back. How are you supposed to plan your life around that?”
On Jan. 12, the AAUP executive board voted to recommend that union members ratify the contract. Approximately 1,200 members of the union have until Jan. 23 to vote via an online ballot. The contract is expected to be officially approved and ratified shortly after the voting period ends.
