Portland State University adjunct faculty say they are prepared to take action, including potentially going on strike, if the administration doesn’t meet their bargaining demands.
Though Portland State University Faculty Association’s contract with the university doesn’t expire until June 30, 2025, the union began bargaining an economic reopener — an opportunity to negotiate the economic portions of the contract — in March.
PSUFA and the university surpassed the 150th day of bargaining Aug. 7, meaning either party can request mediation and potentially declare an impasse. An impasse would force the bargaining teams into further mediation.
The main sticking point, the union says, is compensation.
“My concern was always that PSU was going to move very slowly at the beginning of these negotiations to force us to negotiate over the summer when most adjuncts are not on contract, and there are very few bodies on campus,” Vasiliki Touhouliotis, an Honors College adjunct and the PSUFA membership chair, said. “Indeed, that is what has happened.”
According to the union, the minimum per-credit rate for adjunct faculty is currently $1,120. PSU only offered a $99 increase for year one of the contract. On average, adjuncts teach 10 credits per year, Touhouliotis said.
“The problem is that $1,219 is below the inflation-adjusted per credit minimum we had in 2019, which was $1,235,” the union says on its website. “This ‘raise’ only moves us closer to what we were already making four years ago.”
PSUFA is proposing $1,397 for the first year, which Touhouliotis says would get adjuncts closer to pay parity with full-time faculty.
Though adjuncts account for 47% of instructional faculty, they only account for less than 3% of the university’s overall budget.
PSU told Street Roots it is committed to continued collective bargaining with the union.
“PSU respects and is grateful for the important contributions of all of our part-time faculty,” Katy Swordfisk, a PSU media relations manager, said.
Swordfisk said the university supports its part-time faculty by providing employment security and economic benefits that “are somewhat unique for a part-time work force.”
These benefits, Swordfisk said, include access to professional development, faculty education funds and financial assistance funds.
‘Exploitative labor model’
Bennett Gilbert, a history and philosophy adjunct at PSU, said the university’s reliance on adjuncts is part of a concerning national trend.
Nationwide, higher education's reliance on adjuncts flipped from 80% full-time faculty and 20-30% adjuncts to a majority adjuncts and minority full-time faculty, Gilbert said.
“There are departments at PSU that have not had a tenure track search in over a decade,” he said.
Gilbert points at the current form of capitalism in the U.S. as the culprit.
“It's not capitalism; it's bizarre,” he said. “Capitalism existed for 500 years in conjunction with other value systems. It certainly wasn't always great, but many capitalists had religious beliefs or ethical beliefs … We now have a system that thinks of nothing but profit.”
In this moment of capitalism, PSU, while a nonprofit, is both a victim and an agent of the system’s drive for profits, Gilbert said.
Because universities believe they can pay adjuncts considerably less, they think they have a solution to growing budget issues in higher education, according to Touhouliotis: exploitative labor.
“You cannot solve your budgetary problems through an exploitative labor model,” Touhouliotis said.
No raises
According to the union, PSU says it doesn’t have the funds to pay adjuncts due to a $20 million deficit. The Board of Trustees refuses to allow the university to use reserves to increase the budget for adjuncts, Touhouliotis said.
“The budget crisis the university has found itself in should not mean perpetuating our part-time poverty,” PSUFA says on its website. “Adjuncts did not create this crisis, and its solution should not be laid at the feet of PSU’s already underpaid faculty.”
The university is increasing the full-time faculty budget by $9.4 million for the coming academic year, PSUFA said.
PSU balancing its budget off the wallets of its lowest-paid educational force doesn’t make sense, Touhouliotis said.
“It's just very interesting that the increasing reliance on adjuncts is not being backed with a commitment to actually substantially increase the budget for adjuncts,” she said. “They're using us more, but they don't want to pay us more.”
PSU is Oregon's only higher education institution with no mechanism for higher wages outside of union bargaining that PSUFA could find, Touhouliotis said.
Gilbert, who has taught as an adjunct at PSU for nine years, said he does not receive raises when the university promotes him in title, only when he switched programs or the union bargains a wage increase.
“I've been here 18 years, and the only time I get an increase in wages is when our union bargains for an increase,” Amy Duncun, an adjunct Iyengar yoga instructor, said.
When adjuncts discussed changing the exploitative system with the university, Gilbert said the administration said the union’s wage proposals are “radical.”
“What's radical is having a university faculty that doesn't have health insurance and can’t house themselves or have food insecurity,” he said. “What's radical is having half of your faculty that has no part in university governance.”
‘They do not value us’
Adjuncts said the university’s disrespect for them goes beyond wages and benefits.
While adjuncts officially have rights to shared office space, not all adjuncts have access to office space or places where they can store materials.
Duncan said she has to pay for a locker on campus. Many adjuncts are relegated to shared tables in common areas to work and meet with students between classes.
“They do not value us,” Duncan said. “That's very clear, even though they may give us lip service.”
When the university was remote during the pandemic, Duncan asked if she could use an empty room to teach her course since she lacked the necessary internet connection and space in her 500-square-foot apartment.
The university told her no.
“They told me, ‘Contact one of the local yoga studios to see if you can use their studio,’” she said.
The local yoga studios were also using their spaces to teach remote classes and couldn’t accommodate Duncan’s class schedule.
Instead, Duncan taught the class from her seven-foot by seven-foot kitchen.
Duncan’s experience is only one instance where adjuncts say the university’s disrespect for them impacts education quality.
Disinvestment in education
By disinvesting in adjuncts, PSUFA says the university is disinvesting in quality education.
Part of the university’s defense for its financial problems is decreasing enrollment.
During the spring term, PSU sent 70 non-renewal notices to adjuncts in anticipation of lowered enrollment for the fall term.
“If the university really is facing this crisis of enrollment and retention, how does it make sense to continue to underpay the faculty members that have the most amount of contact with first and second-year students?” Touhouliotis said.
According to adjuncts who have been at the university for many years, PSUFA said, the university has deployed a similar tactic during past financial crisies, prior to the current enrollment crisis.
Gilbert said he talked to undergraduates at PSU who have yet to take a course in their major from an appointed faculty member, highlighting the importance of adjuncts in the university’s culture.
With poverty-level wages and no benefits, many adjuncts move on to other institutions or fields after a few years.
“Students do not have continuous relationships with these adjunct faculty,” Gilbert said.
PSUFA argues the university is contributing to its enrollment and retention problem by reducing budget costs through low adjunct wages.
“If you want to increase your enrollment and retention, wouldn't you invest in the faculty that has the most contact with those students rather than continue to underpay them, continue to treat them as cheap labor and continue to keep them in these precarious positions?” Touhouliotis said.
PSUFA said it will continue fighting for a fair contract, even if it means taking action outside the bargaining room.
“We had an unprecedented response to a poll, which asked adjuncts to report their willingness to participate in a range of collective actions,” Touhouliotis said. “Overwhelmingly, adjuncts indicated they would participate in some form of collective action.”
Collective action, in this case, could include informational pickets, walkouts, limited-duration strikes and open-ended strikes.
Touhouliotis said whether the union calls for action depends on how negotiations go before the fall term starts and whether the university declares an impasse.
“We don't need to continue to accept what has been a historic wrong in the way that adjuncts have been treated at Portland State,” she said. “The significance of our refusal to at this point capitulate to PSU’s proposals comes from this recognition that they have been historically underpaying us, and that needs to be rectified in this economic reopener.”
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