Daily Vanguard

December 6th, 2007

PSU Faculty Union files for mediation

The Portland State faculty union filed for outside mediation this Tuesday in an attempt to resolve the increasingly tense biennial faculty salary bargaining process, between them and the PSU administration, according to the union’s website.

Filing for mediation is one step closer to a possible faculty strike, the President of the PSU chapter of the American Association of University Professors (PSU-AAUP) Gary Brodowicz told the Vanguard last week, but he added that the mediation process may take months to complete.

The PSU-AAUP reported that the Tuesday’s collective bargaining agreement session, which would set union members salaries for the next two years, was “hostile” and “unpleasant.” They informed the administration that they would be seeking out a state sponsored mediator in attempt to resolve the pay dispute after the administration did not agree to the union’s requested 12 percent pay increase.

PSU professors are historically underpaid, often getting thousands of dollars less than comparable professors at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. According to the PSU-AAUP website, the PSU administrations salary proposal has slightly improved from the close to 8.5 percent pay raise they offered for most faculty last month, but it wasn’t high enough.

Under the administrators’ previous salary proposal some faculty would only receive about a 5 percent pay increase, which would put their salaries behind the annual 3 percent inflation rate. The collective bargaining agreement sessions began in April of this year.

The next bargaining session meeting will be announced after the state mediator agrees upon a meeting date, the union’s website reported.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 4:42 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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