Published: April 22, 2019

A full bargaining update is below. But first, there are three actions that every SEIU 503 member can take to make our campaign a success. By sticking together, we can show management that we’re prepared to do whatever it takes to win a strong contract.

On Thursday SEIU members joined the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF) for a loud and energetic unity rally outside of Johnson Hall at the University of Oregon, and on Friday, members were joined by our bargaining team for a rally and a call to action.

Our bargaining chair, Rob Fullmer (PSU), emphasized that success will largely depend on the Legislature’s ability to pass meaningful revenue reform — which is part of our 4-step plan to win. Rob and UO bargaining team member Johnny Earl noted that we need to show the universities an engaged workforce, ready to strike if we have to, in order to win a fair contract.  

At the table, we are continuing to work our way through our noneconomic priorities with the general goals of promoting healthy workplaces and increasing flexibility for workers.  Management’s priorities seem to center around further separating the seven universities in ways that would eliminate some of the flexibility and benefits we currently have.

Here are some of management’s key proposals: 

Article 16 Personnel Files

  • Allows for management to keep disciplinary actions in a worker’s personnel file for a minimum of 3 years (the current contract allows for removal at the worker’s request after two years without another discipline).
  • Prevents workers from including a written statement of critical or incomplete material in their personnel files.

Article 32 Filling of Vacancies

  • Eliminates transfers to other universities.
  • Involuntary demotions (for any reason) will result in a cut in pay if current pay is above the new salary range (currently the worker is red circled and does not receive a pay cut)

Article 36 Limited Duration Appointments

  • Allows managers to extend LD appointments indefinitely.

Article 37 Job Sharing

  • Eliminates job sharing by deletion of the entire article.

Article 53 Reclassification Upward/Downward

  • Allows a university to cut a worker’s pay when they are reclassified downward.
  • Removes union’s ability to grieve and arbitrate a reclassification.

Article 64 Technological Change/Retraining

  • Proposal guts this article and makes it so that we would only have contractual rights in case of a reduction in workforce/hours due to a technological change.

Article 69 Mutual Respect

  • Allows management to use this article to lodge complaints against union staff.  Their examples included a union organizer trying to organize members in a workplace to address a bully boss.

We also spent a significant portion of the two days hearing salary selective presentations. Your bargaining team would like to thank the members who worked to put these presentations together and did a fantastic job representing their coworkers in nine different job classifications.  Each presentation included background information about the work itself, market study data, and recruitment and retention challenges. Our next bargaining session will at Oregon State University on May 2 and 3.

We expect to exchange economic proposals by May 27.  We are asking members to participate in a unity action on May 30th.  Click here to participate in a unity action on your campus.