Bargaining Update March 6th & 10th

The bargaining team met with Administration twice last week on Monday and Friday. We again wanted to give a shout out to all the GEU members who stopped by to watch both sessions. When GEU members are in the room, the mood was noticeably more light hearted. It’s also great to have you all in our caucus sessions, there have been some valuable contributions we wouldn’t have thought out without the input of our observers. We want you to keep showing up to your presence is valuable, for our process and for our brainstorming.

We are continuing to work through one of the longest and most complex articles in our contract, appointments. Appointments will include GAship eligibility, notice of appointments, and the role of assistantships. Each team has exchanged language a few times, and we are closer to finding common language that protects the interests of GAs and gives clarity to what a GA position entails.

Appointment Notification

Notification continues to be a major conversation topic as we work for streamlined and uniform process that gives GAs clarity around the position they’re being offered. Our main push is to have all financial information relevant for GAs in one place, the appointment notification, in the form of a clearly written letter. This would mean each GA would receive salary, number of pay periods, working hours, tuition remission, and estimated fees and health insurance costs in one letter when receiving an appointment. This is key to GA’s being able to calculate their financial situation easily and without having to track down information from different places.

Workload

We have received language back from the Administration on Workloads, and are working on putting together a counter offer to discuss at our next meeting. We’re pushing to guarantee that when a GA works or will work over FTE:

1) the GA can prove this using a form the University will recognize as evidence, and

2) that GA’s supervisor is required to make a change in duties, process, FTE, or otherwise reduce workload.

We’re also pushing to establish a shared understanding in our contract with PSU that for GAs who teach, bigger course sections mean more work, and multiple course sections (especially when the courses are different) also mean more work, and our FTEs and staffing should reflect that.

We want to hear from you! bargaining@pdxgeu.org How well has PSU kept you informed leading up to an appointment or reappointment? Should our appointment letters include all fee information?

Join us next time! We will be meeting at 8am, Friday, March 17th the Park Avenue Cafe, 1525 SW Park Ave for a pre-bargaining meeting. Also, you can observe bargaining this Friday (3/17), anytime from 9am – 4pm, in the University Room (651) at Market Center Building.