SEIU 503 Higher Ed Bargaining Survey October 2020

2020 Bargaining Survey

2020 has been a challenging year for all of us -  continued violence against Black and Brown people in our country, pandemic and economic recession leading to record unemployment, and now wildfires like we haven’t seen in recent history have savaged much of the state. Through all of these struggles, SEIU members have continued to work on campus and remotely. We have been supporting students in too many ways to mention, keeping our campuses safe, and working to get this pandemic under control, among countless other essential services our campus community relies on. 

 

In short, We are Essential.

 

We head into bargaining in a much different financial reality than we did two years ago. Instead of record revenue and a plan to raise taxes on corporations we’re looking at a record budget shortfall. Our work during bargaining will be critical in order to win a fair contract that defends our pay and benefits that we have fought so hard for and includes improvements on key issues that improve working conditions and get recognition for the essential work we do every day. In times like these, we need to look to key non-economic issues as well as economic issues we can win on. 

 

To do this we must: 

  1. Win in November. In order to win at the state level we must see federal funding for states, meaningful federal support requires having a president that will stand with workers and prioritize resources for states and electing a majority pro-working family Senate and House.
  2. Lobby the legislature to use those federal funds to prevent cuts and invest in higher education, and to pass additional revenue as necessary to protect the critical services our members provide.
  3. Engage our membership at every University to put pressure on decision-makers to win a strong contract that addresses the issues our members care most about. This means building our membership base, engaging member leaders in the campaign in worksites, and building a strong field campaign to create pressure on decision-makers. 

The goal of this survey is to get quantifiable data on issues and priorities. Filling out this survey is the first step of this campaign, together we will show the Universities we are all essential. Please have all responses in by December 4th. 

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Wages and Benefits

During the last bargaining cycle we were able to pass historical revenue reform that led to salary increases at levels we hadn’t seen in decades. Despite the record revenue we saw initial proposals from the Universities to triple what we pay for our monthly health insurance premium share and 0% raises. We fought back and won coming within hours of going on strike. One year later it's hard to believe how different things look. While Oregon has been able to weather this recession better than many states because of the revenue reform we helped pass, our state is still in a dire financial situation. We’re reeling from a worldwide pandemic, record unemployment, and now a devastating wildfire season.  Without federal funding for states we will likely be looking at massive cuts proposals from the Universities, and with federal funding we need to be prepared to fight to protect jobs, wages and benefits by being clear about our priorities. 


A note on PERS: We don’t bargain over PERS issues, but we do expect to see proposals around PERS at the Legislature.  We will send out separate, PERS-specific survey questions later in the process to get member feedback.


Given that context, please answer the following questions relating to wages and benefits:


Please rank the following economic issues in order of importance











Working Conditions


Continued Expansion of Telework. During this pandemic we’ve been able to greatly increase access to telework, though not for everyone.
1 (very important) 2 3 4 5 (not at all important)















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