We will be holding our Winter Term General Membership Meeting on Friday, February 2nd from 2:00-3:00 PM on Zoom.

Later in January, the WOUFT bargaining team will be participating in two full days of Interest Based Bargaining (IBB) training alongside WOU administration.

At the general meeting in February, union officers and the bargaining team will update members on IBB processes and expectations, what our upcoming bargaining sessions will look like, and how we’ll communicate with all union members during bargaining.

Please bring your questions and insights so the bargaining team can be sure that our efforts for a better contract are reflective of our members’ needs!

SEIU is holding a rally at noon on Friday, December 15th at the Werner University Center.

If you can’t attend the rally, please consider lending your support as SEIU members march from Hamersly Library to the administration building to present a bargaining petition.

WOUFT members are encouraged to join them in walking the route to the administration building or stepping outside and cheering them on during those 15 minutes.  

Your solidarity with our SEIU staff colleagues makes an important and positive impact as they bargain for a better contract, and strengthens BOTH of our Unions. 

On October 23rd, Provost Coll shared a letter titled “Academic Affairs Return 2024” which laid out WOU’s expectations for staff and faculty to limit remote work whenever possible.

In this letter, Provost Coll stated that NTT faculty “who do not have service or advising responsibilities” would be exempt from the requirement of holding one hour per week of scheduled office hours in-person and on-campus, but changing any WOU faculty’s workload in this manner is likely to be a violation of the CBA.

While WOUFT appreciates and shares Provost Coll’s focus on student success, and feels this violation was accidental, the CBA defines scheduled office hours as a part of teaching for all covered faculty—not as part of service or advising. We are also leery of a stopgap measure that might have unintended impacts on faculty’s ability to connect with students over instruction-related questions, making it harder for students to succeed academically.

As a result, we have worked with the provost on a formal Letter of Agreement (LOA) about office hours, which you can find on the provost’s web page or on our website.

Ultimately, WOUFT wanted to approach the issue of office hours and fair compensation for faculty more holistically—all faculty teach students and support student success and contact hours are one way we do that. Our CBA has always defined contact hours as what is outlined in Article 7, Section 4.A.5.  

We want to move towards a contact hours policy that is student-driven and supports equitable faculty workload, taking advantage of the range of modalities and technologies that are afforded to us now. So we landed on the LOA signed above, which provides greater flexibility for all instructors based on student need connected to course modality. 

We hope to refine this further during bargaining, and we’re committed to making workload and compensation for all faculty, including those classified as NTT faculty, a priority during bargaining. We also hope this LOA provides faculty more flexibility in the meantime in working with and supporting students.

Please reach out if you have any questions.

Thank you!  Your WOUFT Executive Council

WOUFT will hold its fall membership meeting via Zoom from 3:30-5:00 on Thursday, October 12th.

The first portion of the meeting is open to all and will include:

• Introduce Union leadership and our goals for the year
• Invitation to new members, restructuring steward program for Winter
• New website features and updates
• Update on faculty listening sessions
• Update on working with AFT-Oregon and our political focus
• Introduce interest based bargaining
• Audit progress

There will also be members-only updates on political donations and TRU advocacy.

We look forward to seeing you!

In a joint statement, WOUFT President Melanie Landon-Hays and WOU President Jesse Peters announced today that the union and administration agreed to extend the current CBA for one year, which means collective bargaining will not resume until the 2023-2024 academic year.

You can read the complete statement on the Collective Bargaining Page.