PSU Rallies for Shared Sacrifice
Members reject unlimited furloughs
At a spirited bargaining rally on Thursday April 16, about 100 SEIU members from PSU, along with student and community supporters, expressed their frustrations with the approach the OUS Management Bargaining Team is taking toward bargaining.
Marc Nisenfeld, chair of the Union Bargaining Team, reviewed the status of bargaining, and read excerpts from a petition signed by hundreds of PSU members. It states that SEIU members are willing to accept “shared sacrifice” in these difficult times, but not the “excessive sacrifice” represented by management’s proposals on the table, so far.
Nisenfeld went on to list examples of proposals demonstrating management’s efforts to take advantage of the economic climate, such as step freezes, contract changes that would allow unlimited furloughs, conversion of every holiday for two years to unpaid days off, removal of several existing representation and layoff rights, elimination of vacation cash-outs, and more.
Greg Marks, SEIU Bargaining Table Representative from PSU, led the group to PSU President Wim Wiewel’s office, with the crowd shouting chants like “Hey, hey, George and Jay – Unlimited Furloughs, No Way!” and “Classified Workers at Portland State – Help to make this campus great!” along the way.
The petitions were delivered to the President’s representative with a request from the group: Ask the OUS Bargaining Team, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Jay Kenton, and Chancellor George Pernsteiner to change their bargaining stance to one that promotes cooperation and settlement. The President’s representative promised to pass this request on to the President.
Bargaining took place Thursday and Friday. Although there was some positive movement on the part of management, there was a major negative move as well. First the positive: Because of the intense pressure applied by SEIU 503 membership, management has withdrawn its proposal to make our holidays unpaid for the next biennium. Unfortunately, it was replaced it with a proposal to invoke a pay cut up to 4.6%. The SEIU 503 team had to remind management that the Ground Rules for Negotiations clearly state that all such agreements have to be negotiated at the joint OUS/DAS table and that this proposal is moot and not allowed.
We did sign two Tentative Agreements (TAs). One sets the timeline for commencement of our next contract negotiations and the other strengthens our grievance rights under the Discrimination article—the latter being caused by a change in the law. Although these TAs are small, they do indicate progress.
The Ways and Means Committee of the Legislature will be conducting hearings on the State's Budget (including OUS) during statewide field hearings, this week and next. Please contact your organizer if you would like to help reduce the cuts for the OUS budget.
We return to the table April 30 and May 1 at Western Oregon University.
More recent news about DAS/OUS bargaining