PSU and AAUP at bargaining table

On Oct. 31, the current American Association of University Professors contract—already extended past its original June 31 end-date—will expire. The deadline looms for the Portland State administration and the full-time faculty union, which represents approximately 1,200 faculty members at PSU, as they work toward reaching an accord.

The top priority for the union is salary. In 2008, members accepted pay cuts ranging from 2 to 4.6 percent.They have taken furloughs each of the last several years, with more scheduled for this year and the next.

“We’ve been behind market for years…Even if they kept us up with cost of living every year for the past however many biennium, we’d still be behind market,” said Jonathan Uto, the president of AAUP’s Portland State chapter.

Data collected by the union from the Oregon University System and PSU Fact Books for 2000 and 2010 show that between those years, enrollment at PSU increased by 50 percent and administrative payroll increased by 47 percent, while average salaries for full-time faculty at PSU rose only 8 percent.

Uto said the current request is a 6 percent salary increase for the 2011 school year and another 6 percent increase for 2012. Additionally, the union does not want any increase to health care costs.

Being behind market poses a real problem because it may hinder recruitment and retention of quality faculty. University of Oregon recently made headlines when the university president, Richard Lariviere, authorized equity raises for faculty and some administrators at a time when the governor had demanded pay freezes for state employees.

In a UO report for the chancellor, Lariviere explained: “It is imprudent and a false economy not to invest in the talent at home…the UO lost at least 15 faculty, all of them among our best, to external offers this year.”

PSU has lost faculty as well. Bob Liebmen, a member of the AAUP bargaining team and PSU sociology professor, said, “PSU salaries are in the bottom 20 percent among its peers, and faculty took a cut in 2009 and 2010. My department lost two faculty members and three top job candidates to low pay. As we grow in size and reputation, PSU must address retention and recruitment—and do it soon.”

The university will not discuss the details of the negotiations until they are complete but did provide an official response to Lariviere’s decision from President Wim Wiewel, in which Wiewel cites PSU’s faculty union and lower tuition revenue as the main barriers to following UO’s example.

“In the end, all institutions will have to stay under the limitations set by the governor and legislature regarding total compensation, including salary raises,” Wiewel said. “There needs to be shared sacrifice by every Portland State University employee.”

At a union meeting on Oct. 14 that immediately followed a bargaining session with the university administration, approximately 40 union members were briefed on the current state of negotiations by Mary King, the vice president of collective bargaining for AAUP and a PSU economics professor. In response to the administration’s statement on the monetary constraints on pay raises, she said, “This makes no sense. The state pays between 10 and 15 percent of our budget—why does that tail wag the whole entire dog?”

“We are making money, we are teaching so many students and we are doing so much more externally funded research,” King said. “Revenues are up, up, up in every single category, including donor dollars.”

Currently, the union said, the university has $54 million in reserve funds—approximately 19.8 percent of its operating budget. The state recommends that universities keep 5 to 15 percent of their operating budgets in reserve. The university said it’s holding onto these reserves in case the state cuts funding in the coming biennium.

The state “probably will [cut funding], but they aren’t going to cut it entirely,” King said. “Why are we saving the whole state allocation?”

King did report gaining some traction on the salary point. “Today they moved just a little bit…it gets the base salary up,” she said. “A huge priority is bringing up those base salaries, because then when times are better, we build from there.”

Uto argued that while class sizes and tuition costs continue to grow, the university is failing to invest in human resources. “They are building a new science building on the waterfront. They want a new sustainability building. The president wants to move [his office] to Market Street,” he said. “I don’t think that’s what students want, and I don’t think that’s what students think their tuition is being raised for.”