The Service Workers International Union and Oregon’s Public Universities came to a contract agreement late Wednesday night. Classified workers and Oregon’s seven public universities have been in contract negotiations since January. Workers were ready to strike had they not come to a bargaining agreement.
According to SEIU, the agreement gives classified workers a four year contract, with a reopener on economics after the first two years. There will be a 2.25 percent cost-of-living-adjustment in December of 2015 and another 2.25 percent wage increase one year later.
There have also been adjustments to the health care policy. Service workers’ last contract required the university to pay 95 percent of health care premiums, with workers paying the remaining five percent. The universities had earlier proposed dropping their coverage to 90 percent. Workers refused to budge on that proposal. Wednesday night, the universities agreed to keep last year’s numbers. The universities will still cover 95 percent of health care premiums.
Health care will now be available to part time workers working .75 full-time equivalent, something the university did not previously provide.
Classified workers at the University of Oregon say they are happy with the agreement. The union had previously cited the 2.3 percent inflation increase in Portland as a justification for wage raises. The union was asking for 3 percent each year.
“It’s only because workers stood strong together throughout bargaining that we were bale to beat back this slate of attacks and move higher ed workers forward,” the SEIU bargaining team said in a statement. “We benefited from the activism on the near-strike of two years ago, from members’ work to help elect a pro-worker legislature and governor who then funded higher education with record-high budget increases, and from thousands of members who raised their voices to protest management’s attempts to pay as little as possible and take away hard-fought union rights.”
“The Universities and SEIU worked diligently for the past nine months to address each others’ interests, while keeping in mind the interest of the students that we all serve,” Oregon’s Public Universities’ Chief Spokesman Brian Caulfield said in a statement. “The process, at times, was challenging, but both sides kept focused and ultimately reached a fair and reasonable deal.”
While the contract has been agreed upon by the bargaining team, it still needs to be ratified by the workers.