It’s Time To Shift Focus Back To Educating Our Students
Barbara Altmann, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of French
September 9, 2013
Contract negotiations between the University and the faculty union, United Academics, ended Friday without a union response to the salary proposal the University put on the table earlier in the week.
That’s disappointing, as the proposal was specifically revised to reflect faculty priorities regarding salary equity and floors. Overall, the University’s proposal would increase salaries for non-tenure track faculty by an average of 12.4% and tenure-track and tenured faculty by an average of 11.9%.
No state public employee union has been offered increases that large. With salary and benefits totaled, the University would spend an additional $23.6 million in salary and benefit costs through fiscal year 2015 for bargaining unit members. That grows to $28.8 million, when the adjustment is extended to all faculty.
With classes set to begin in two weeks, it is time to finish with these negotiations and focus on the coming academic year. We’ve spent months working on this first faculty union contract and, together, we have achieved a result that will make the University of Oregon stronger.
The proposed salary increases, along with benefits, will make substantial progress toward closing the gap between UO faculty salaries and those at our peer institutions.
Under this proposal, faculty members would receive salary increases ranging, on average, from 5% to 7% in FYI4 and from 5% to 6.5% in FY15. During the same period, the UO is limited to raising residential undergraduate tuition by no more than 3.5%. There is a limit to the costs students and families can bear. And there are limits to what the University can responsibly spend, given all its other needs.
The leadership of United Academics has repeatedly said it wants to do what’s best for the UO and its students and faculty. Now is the time for the union to demonstrate that commitment.
