At noon, members of the United Academics of the University of Oregon rallied at the Erb Memorial Union Amphitheater to voice their support for a new contract with UO administration before their last bargaining session.
Approximately 100 members of UA and other campus unions, including Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation and UO Student Workers Union, were in attendance.
Leslie Selcer, a member of UA and previous president of GTFF said adding “across-the-board” wages to the new contract would help faculty meet the cost of living, while the merit raises UO has proposed “pit [faculty] against each other.”
“They are trying to get us to chase extremely limited merit raises rather than giving a fair cost of living raise for everyone and we are not going to fall for it,” Selcer said.
UO’s website counters the need for general raises and points out the benefits of a merit pay system.
“[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,” the website said.
Edward Davis, chair of organizing membership and associate professor of geological sciences, addressed the crowd.
“I don’t understand why we have to have these sessions where we don’t get respect for the work we do,” Davis said. “Why do we have to show up over and over again only to have administrators tell us that we are not the ones that are making the university work when we know that that is what we are doing?”
Ashton Pressman, a member of UOSW, said that the university is “scared” that UO unions are working together.
“They [UO administration] are scared we will stand together,” Pressman said. “We will not accept subpar conditions for anyone on campus. Your [campus unions’] fight is our fight and we are never going to let UO forget that.”
Jacob Schmitt, member of GTFF, said he attended to “show solidarity [and] to return the favor,” referencing diverse union support at other union rallies this academic year.
Today’s rally comes two weeks after the last UA rally on the steps of Johnson Hall.
Davis said the rallies were scheduled so close to each other to “put an exclamation point” on the end of UA’s bargaining sessions with UO.
“We [UA] want to make clear that we have the faculty’s united interests here for the last of our open sessions,” Edward said.
UA Secretary Chris Sinclair said the rally was a preface to a “potential strike.”
“Since it is the last bargaining session… we thought now is a good time to demonstrate that we have the power to strike if necessary,” Sinclair said.
The rally concluded at the 12:30 p.m. bargaining session where UO proposed a 4% across-the-board raise for 2025, instead of the previously proposed 3%.
“We are putting a number on the table [4%] that…we believe this addresses to some degree the inflation,” Chris Meade, UO director of Employee & Labor Relations, said.
“It is always good to see movement,” UA Treasurer Keaton Miller said, but ultimately, UA was not satisfied with the proposals on the table.
“Yeah we agree with you that [UO doesn’t] get enough money from the state as we think we should… we agree with you there but that isn’t the whole story of the university’s budget,” Miller said.
The bargaining session ended and UO’s website declares that “the university intends to request mediation through the state’s Employment Relations Board.”
