Adjunct Faculty at PSU Settle Contract After 10 Month Negotiation

IN JANUARY, THE Portland State University Faculty Association (PSUFA) Local 3571 and the PSU administration came to a tentative agreement on a proposed contract. Adjuncts, or part-time professors, have been without a contract since their previous one expired at the end of June 2003.

Susan Fuhr, a PSUFA member who sits on the bargaining team and is a grievance steward estimated that it will take at least two weeks for the entire union membership to ratify the contract.

“This is not a great victory for us, but at least some points of positive growth are occurring in these difficult times,” she said. Fuhr was present for two hours of the seven-and-a-half hour mediated negotiation Monday.

“The administration has become more interested in the issues we were putting forward,” Fuhr said.

PSUFA has won gains in job security and increased subsidy in union accounts like the limited health care fund for members in need. Other gains include the establishment of an orientation process for new part time professors and improvements in the grievance procedure for adjuncts.

No gains were made in creating pay equity between part time and full time professors and the proposed contract does not address multiple other issues the union has raised.

”Right now is a particularly bad time economically and politically that prevents us from achieving what we want,“ Fuhr said.