As winter term begins, both UO Student Workers and United Academics are headed to state mediation and eyeing potential strike options. 

During fall term sessions, the university and union bargaining teams found it challenging to agree on salaries that satisfied UO faculty. Disagreements over free speech and grievance articles, a focal point of UOSW rallies, also remain unresolved. 

University of Oregon’s local Service Employees International Union 503 and the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation supported UOSW and UA through tense negotiations and vow to continue their efforts into the winter term. 

UA negotiators are striving to reach a contract that provides 8.5% pay raises for all faculty during 2025. At the final open bargaining session on Dec. 5, 2024, UO proposed a 4% raise for 2025 instead of their initial 3% offer, but UA did not accept this deal.

“We knew for months that [a] 4% [raise] for 2025 was going to be on the table … that is not sufficient for our members … It looks like a raise on paper but it is asking us to swallow a pay cut because of inflation,” Keaton Miller, associate economics professor and UA treasurer, said. 

Across the board, faculty who did not receive merit raises saw their salary fall about 5% behind inflation during the timeframe of the previous contract from 2022 to 2024, when faculty compensation is compared to the most current Consumer Price Index. 

For tenured professors and those on a career and tenure track, that pay gap was partly or fully closed if their work met certain standards after review processes. 

At the last bargaining session, faculty members were seen flapping paper red cards and making bird noises as signs of disagreement toward the university’s wage proposal because ground rules prohibit the audience from speaking during negotiations.

The university offered UA higher merit-based raises in addition to the 4% across the board raises, but UA refused the package. 

Chris Meade, UO director of employee and labor relations, argued across the board raises are not the only way for faculty to gain adequate compensation.

“The combination of annual increases and review-related increases presents multiple opportunities for increases in pay over the term of the contract for tenure-related and career faculty members,” Meade said in a letter to the UO community after the last bargaining session. 

State funding to UO is also a factor for how raises are proposed. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s proposed budget for 2025 to 2027 gives an approximately $4.39 billion boost to higher education in the state, but college and university leaders say it’s not good enough. 

UOSW negotiator Izzie Marshall said there has been increased membership since UOSW bargaining began in February 2024, as more student workers choose to have a say over their wages. 

“Before the union, the university had complete control over how we were paid [and] what we were paid. [UO] could take students’ input at their own discretion, but what bargaining provides is the chance to negotiate directly with our employer, the university, to come to a fair deal and that is really empowering,” Marshall said.

Miller concurred, pointing to highly attended rallies and meetings.

“People understand this is a more important moment than there has been for a while and people are showing up,” Miller said. UA has not gone to mediation since the formation of the union in 2012.

While pay increases are important to UOSW, another priority is a free speech and protest article.

“So many student workers had free speech in the top three [ranked priorities]. It is clearly in the front of student workers’ minds and there is a lot more action about protest that has been met with more harsher responses for the university,” Marshall said. 

This debate over free speech comes amid concern over campus surveillance measures, which some union leaders described as “extraordinary” in a recent letter delivered to President Scholz. 

According to the media advisory sent before the letter delivery and Oct. 3 rally, these measures included “the University’s requests that students report their instructors’ political course content and targeting peaceful student protests using video recordings from the Board of Trustees public meetings.”

“Having free speech enshrined in our contract makes sure it is something we can rely on if anything happens with the university or more broadly,” Marshall said. 

UOSW’s proposed free speech and protest article requests that the university not use law enforcement unless there is a “clear and present threat of danger and with advanced notice to all parties involved.” 

UOSW also wants a ban on tear gas, rubber bullets, and blunt force in all situations. The university responded with its own article, stating that it understands UOSW’s request as a permissive, rather than a mandatory, bargaining subject.

UOSW also hopes to see changes made to the handling of grievances and pay period as they head into mediation, but the university understands these items to fall under the more lenient permissive bargaining category as well.  

The result of bargaining and mediation remains up in the air. 

“We are fighting to make the changes that will change not just our lives as student workers but also all the student workers to come — years from now,” Marshall said.

Given the possibility of strikes if mediation does not resolve conflicts, unions across campus are preparing to show up for each other.

“We stand in solidarity with our fellow unions on campus and we will take their lead,” Chris Chase, SEIU outreach coordinator and UO data assistant, said. “We are obligated to show that solidarity.”

UO has decided that across-the-board raises for faculty is not the smartest way to divide the pie. According to Meade, the university is already in a “challenging fiscal citation,” lacking the money it needs to fund education and general expenses this year and over the next five years. 

That said, many campus workers continue to feel discouraged and strive for higher wages.

“We are human beings; we are not just line items on a spreadsheet … people have dedicated their lives to this work,” Miller said.

UO did not respond to several requests for comment sent throughout December 2024 and January 2025.