This statement provides information and context regarding recent negotiations between the PSU administration and PSU-AAUP. For ongoing bargaining updates from the University, including a detailed comparison between the University and AAUP final offers, please see OAA’s AAUP Bargaining Updates blog.
After months of successor contract negotiations, PSU-AAUP has declared impasse. Last week, the union and the University submitted “final offers” as required by Oregon law. But, please know that the University is committed to continuing negotiations. PSU is determined to resolve the AAUP contract fairly and responsibly so we can move forward together. As a University, we are facing intense external and internal challenges, and we must work together to protect our community and continue the important work we all do every day to improve the lives of our students. A comparison between the University and the union’s final offers can be found here.
PSU exists to create opportunities and improve the lives of our students, and PSU faculty are the heart of that work. We respect and support the work of PSU-AAUP to advocate for a fair contract for its members. The work of PSU administration is to protect the interests of the University as a whole, and to ensure that it is able to continue to serve its students into the future.
That future depends on our ability to operate in a fiscally sustainable manner. The steep decline in student enrollment over the past decade is undisputed, and demographic and cultural changes make it unlikely that we’ll see a dramatic enrollment increase soon. As a public university, we are the beneficiaries of public funds and student tuition dollars, and we must be responsible stewards of those funds.
NTTF LAYOFFS
The impact of proposed faculty layoffs on our campus has been profound. The University is committed to reaching the financial sustainability targets set forth by the president and approved by the Board of Trustees, and part of that effort necessarily includes addressing excess programmatic instructional capacity that has occurred as a result of enrollment declines. However, PSU has sought to address that concern as much as possible through means other than layoffs, including by managing vacant positions and offering a very successful faculty retirement incentive offer.
There has been a great deal of confusion about the relationship between faculty layoffs and contract negotiations for the successor bargaining agreement, so we want to be clear about this. Under the terms of the ground rules governing the University’s and union’s contract negotiations, the proposed faculty layoffs are not an issue that the parties agreed would be addressed through these contract negotiations. Contract negotiations are to address the terms of the successor contract between AAUP and PSU.
That said, the University has acknowledged the need to bargain with the union over the impacts of the proposed layoffs as a matter separate from the successor bargaining. In December, the University offered a proposed Memorandum of Agreement to the union to address these impacts. The proposed agreement included terms to support the laid-off faculty funded from the one-time HECC sustainability funds, including job placement assistance, a one-time severance payment (up to $20,000), and a 4-year tuition scholarship to be used at PSU only for any member or dependent currently using the staff-fee privilege this AY for up to 12 terms (UG) and 6 terms (GR). The value of the proposed scholarship is for a UG full-time, $12,000; UG part-time: $6,000; GR full-time: $12,000; GR part-time: $6,000. During mediation, the AAUP did not directly counter this proposed MOA.
THE UNIVERSITY’S PROPOSED FTE REDUCTION PROGRAM
As noted above, the University was concerned about the propriety of addressing the layoffs in successor contract bargaining. However, it became increasingly clear that the issue was a barrier preventing the parties from reaching agreement on contract terms.
In an effort to come up with a creative solution, and to be responsive to faculty voices, the administration team reviewed recommendations from a June 3, 2024 “Report from ‘Possibilizing’ Conversations in Faculty Senate Steering Committee.” One of the recommendations of the Possibilizing report was a retirement incentive offer, which the University has already implemented and resulted in 32 retirement agreements. Another recommendation was to allow faculty to reduce their FTE while still retaining benefits.
With this in mind, the University brought forward a comprehensive “supposal” to create and implement a voluntary FTE reduction program for instructional faculty, and to directly apply the savings from that program to reduce or eliminate the faculty layoffs. The University’s initial offer, made on January 31, included the following terms:
- During a set period of time, instructional faculty could opt to reduce their FTE from 1.0 to either .5 or .75 at their option (meaning, without any requirement for approval from their department chair or dean).
- While completely voluntary, the FTE reductions would be permanent in order to provide cost savings sufficient to offset the layoffs.
- The University would rescind as many NTTF Layoffs as were offset by the cost savings derived from the program.
- If the cost savings were insufficient to support rescission of all of the layoffs, the University would determine, in consultation with AAUP, which termination notices to rescind based on the instructional needs of the University. The University later committed to rescinding layoffs first in departments where multiple faculty members were being laid off.
- If layoffs were still needed, the University would pay a severance payment of $20,000 to each laid-off faculty member.
- The AAUP would withdraw pending grievances related to the layoffs.
- To make part-time work for faculty more cost-effective — and thereby more available — in the future, the University proposed that effective in four years, part-time faculty would make a pro-rata contribution to the cost of their employment benefits (as provided in the SEIU contract). The University later agreed to remove this language and simply state that the parties would agree to renegotiate contract language about part-time benefits at a time in the future.
The University acknowledged that it would be challenging for the parties to implement the FTE reduction program quickly enough to rescind the layoffs, and timeliness in reaching agreement on the proposal was critical to its success. The AAUP did provide a counter offer that was quite different from the original program, and unfortunately the parties were not able to reach agreement.
PSU is determined to resolve the AAUP contract fairly and responsibly so that we can move forward together.