Faculty union prepares for bargaining as PSU faces budget deficit

Negotiations have yet to begin but Portland State University’s largest faculty union is readying for a long and hard fight with university administration over its next labor contract.

About 100 people attended PSU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors bargaining kickoff rally in downtown Portland’s Park Blocks Wednesday afternoon. AAUP represents over 1,100 faculty, staff and researchers at Portland State.

Union members wore red and white AAUP shirts and held signs with slogans like “cutting programs means cutting people” and “working conditions create learning conditions.” The group then marched through Portland State’s downtown campus to the Richard & Maurine Neuberger Center, a key PSU administration building that houses the president’s office.

Some AAUP members took to the bullhorn and recalled overworked colleagues, staff shortages and PSU departments that overly rely on grants. They say these working conditions have hampered their ability to teach students.

“We are struggling,” said Emily Ford, president of PSU’s chapter of AAUP. “We are struggling to give students what they need because the board of trustees and the administration need to invest in us, invest in the workers.”

AAUP’s upcoming contract negotiations come as Portland State is facing a yearslong decline in enrollment and a budget deficit. The financial outlook for the university will come into clearer focus this week. PSU’s Board of Trustees is set to approve the university’s 2024-25 budget on Friday. Documents from the board’s finance and administration committee show a projected $27 million budget deficit next fiscal year, if there are no changes to the university’s expenses. The committee expects that PSU will have to shrink its workforce to balance budgets in the short term. PSU’s board will consider pulling $18 million from its reserves.

Even with that bleak financial forecast for the university, Ford said the union is ready to fight for better working conditions for its members. AAUP is calling for the university to pull even more from its reserves to bring stability to faculty and staff.

AAUP said an entire academic unit of 12 people, The Intensive English Language Program, has already been given a layoff notice that will go into effect this fall. PSU implemented other faculty and staff layoffs last year as it attempted to wrangle a $20 million budget deficit for the 2023-24 school year. The union worries more layoffs are coming.

In a statement, a university spokesperson said PSU and AAUP have exchanged bargaining topics and articles to discuss in upcoming negotiation sessions.

“The university looks forward to productive discussions on the identified topics,” said the statement.

Including AAUP, Portland State has five unions representing its employees. The university is currently in contract negotiations with its graduate employees union.

Support at Wednesday’s rally also came from some of Portland State’s other unions. Members from Service Employees International Union, Local 49, which represents PSU janitors, and the Portland State University Faculty Association, which represents adjunct faculty, joined in. Angela Bonilla, president of the Portland Teachers Association and a former PSU student, also spoke at the rally. Portland teachers went on strike last November for the first time, and like PSU, Portland Public Schools is dealing with budget cuts and declining enrollment.

AAUP’s contract expires later this year in November. The union’s first bargaining session with the university is set for June 13.

Wages that keep up with inflation are top of mind for AAUP members.

“We marched down here to show the administration that we have power and that we deserve a contract that gives us job stability,” said Ford.