September 24 Negotiation Session

Notes contributed by OT-AAUP bargaining team member Dr. David Johnston, Natural Sciences, with minor edits by Communications Committee Member Dr. Ben Bunting, Humanities and Social Sciences

On Thursday, September 24, the OT-AAUP and Oregon Tech negotiating teams met for their second bargaining session of the Fall term. OT-AAUP presented two proposal packages, one on Progressive Discipline, Grievances, Arbitration, and Position Descriptions, and a second on Academic Classification & Rank, Evaluation, Promotion, & Tenure, and Faculty Compensation. The Oregon Tech team did not present any proposals.

Proposal Package #1
First, the Association presented their proposal package which contained Progressive Discipline, Grievances, Arbitration, and Position Descriptions. In regards to Progressive Discipline, Grievances, and Arbitration, the Association explained that they had incorporated some of the language from the Administration’s previous proposals, and that the Association thought the parties were getting close to agreement on those articles. In regards to Position Descriptions, the Association, once again, explained that it was not the intention of OT-AAUP to dictate what was in Position Descriptions, but merely to require that each faculty member be given a position description that clearly outlines the faculty member’s duties and responsibilities, and clearly indicates how they will be evaluated. The Oregon Tech team only had clarifying questions and there was not much discussion around these articles before the parties went into caucus.

After caucus, the Administration’s team seemed to express some disappointment in the first package presented by the Association. The Administration’s team stated that they did not feel that the parties were moving closer to agreement on the proposals contained in the Association’s first package. The Oregon Tech team then began to point out some of the discrepancies between the two parties’ proposal on Grievances, while ignoring the many parts that they had come to agreement on. Additionally, the Oregon Tech team seemed to imply that the Association had added parts to its Compensation article that were not previously there. In response, the Association stated that they understood there were still some differences, but they weren’t going to necessarily concede certain points just to reach agreement.

Proposal Package #2
Lastly, OT-AAUP presented its second proposal package, which contained proposals on Academic Classification & Rank, Evaluation, Promotion, & Tenure, and Faculty Compensation. First, the Association team explained that their Academic Classification & Rank proposal was largely unchanged from their previous position. Second, the Association explained that the new Evaluation, Promotion, & Tenure proposal, if the University were to accept the package, would replace the Association’s previous proposals on Annual Evaluation of Faculty, Promotion & Tenure for Tenure-Track Faculty, and Promotion for Non-Tenure Track Faculty. (For the details of this proposal, see any of the proposals mentioned above dated 09/24./20 in the Google Sheets document.) Finally, the Association briefly reviewed their Compensation counter, and explained that the only addition to the proposal were the salary tables, which hadn’t been provided previously since the parties had not agreed on which data sets to use in creating the table. (Note, the parties did not agree on which data set to use, rather, the Association used national averages to compute the salary tables.)

Note: The Oregon Tech team formally rejected the Associations first proposal package containing Progressive Discipline, Grievances, Arbitration, and Position Descriptions on September 24. As of the writing of this summary, Oregon Tech has neither accepted nor rejected OT-AAUP’s second proposal package on Academic Classification & Rank, Evaluation, Promotion, & Tenure, and Compensation.

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