Oregon Tech petitions Employment Relations Board to declare the faculty union strike unlawful

The following is a press release from Ken Fincher, Vice President Institutional Advancement, Oregon Tech.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. - On Wednesday, April 21, 2021, Oregon Tech filed a petition with the Oregon Employment Relations Board (ERB) asking the ERB to declare the tentative strike by the Oregon Tech American Association of University Professors (AAUP) unlawful.

Oregon Tech also filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the union.

The documents filed cite numerous instances where the Oregon Tech faculty union leadership did not bargain or act in good faith.

Taken together, the union’s actions caused unnecessary delays at the bargaining table. The University believes additional time is warranted to continue negotiations in good faith, without a potential strike looming.

Improper union actions include: filing its final offer with the ERB without first providing proposals at the negotiating table; attempted interference with the University’s bargaining team; direct dealing; and inaccurate costing of its proposals.

An example of such actions includes the faculty senate and faculty union working in concert to insist that the University remove the university’s lead negotiators. Another example is the faculty union stating to the Oregon Tech Board of Trustees, “Faculty cannot and will not accept a contract that does not . . . [include] promotion for our non-tenured faculty, and annual faculty evaluations[,]" thereby directly dealing with the highest level of administrators about the terms of the prospective bargaining agreement. These actions show an intent to not honor the negotiation process.

Furthermore, the faculty union’s cost summary contained significant errors and underestimated the total cost by failing to account for the accumulation of costs throughout the length of the contract. Thus, the Union reported $5,924,247 as its projected increase through the contract term, when the total increase based on Association's current cost proposal equals $12,452,517. Also, the Union had reported that its compensation proposal for year one of the contract represented 20% of the current salaries for the members. Given the "current cost" reported on the Union’s cost summary, the year-one wage increase should have been $3,630,000 (not the $2,390,060 reported), and the total compensation cost increase through the end of the contract was over $16,172,000.

In essence, the faculty union’s actions consisted of bad faith bargaining, unlawful conduct related to orchestrating a campaign to remove and bypass Oregon Tech’s chief negotiator, and for failing to provide a correct and factual cost summary that would properly inform the public and allow for a public debate on the merits of their proposal.

Oregon Tech is asking ERB to declare the faculty union strike unlawful, direct the Union to return to bargaining for a full 30 days, and otherwise comply with the law before undertaking any further strike action.