Regina Psaki

“Everyone is concerned about compensation issues — salary, health insurance, retirement — but that’s not the only thing a union can improve for us. I’m very invested in the shared governance of the university, and collective bargaining can strengthen the faculty role. The faculty are part of the long-term identity of the UO, yet we have less and less voice in the decisions that affect the whole institution, such as how much of our budget actually goes to instruction — which is the mission of the institution. You often hear us called the academic side of the university. I disagree: we’re the academic core. Without a union, we have made no headway in restoring that mission, and the faculty, as the academic core.

I am also concerned about increasing our enrollment from 16,000 students in 1989 to 23,389 in 2011, without allocating the resources for any real increase in tenure-line faculty. Consequently, we have more non-tenure-track colleagues who don’t have the same salary scale, job security, due process protections, and working conditions. A union can bargain for more tenure-track opportunities for these colleagues, along with less exploitation of those in non-tenure-track positions.”