Career Faculty Transition to Expectation of Continuous Employment
UO and UA have reached an agreement regarding career faculty employment strengthens career faculty employment at the university by moving to an expectation of continued employment.
Career faculty are an important part of our teaching mission and campus community, and we are excited to announce that we are moving towards a system of an expectation of continued employment with defined notice periods and away from a system of contracts with fixed end dates.
As was the case this year, the current contract system for non-funding contingent career faculty disproportionately impacts career faculty whose contracts are up for renewal in years where the university is experiencing financial stress. That means that historically, layoff decisions could not fully account for important factors like performance or rank. The parties were able to reach agreement on key principles that will address this issue and collectively move the university away from its current system of contracts that expire at a set point and towards an expectation of continued employment for our career faculty. These principles include notice periods for all career faculty, with promoted faculty receiving a year’s notice prior to any employment action (layoff due to a financial or academic reason, for example), an expedited arbitration process for complaints associated with employment actions, and a guarantee that career faculty who have been laid off will receive the same FTE if they are rehired within a two-year period.
A small workgroup of representatives from the university and UA met throughout the fall term to build a new system of career faculty employment based on the principles agreed to in September of 2020. UA and UO reached agreement on the changes and UA members approved a second memorandum of understanding in January 2021 that updates the CBA and establishes the system for continuous employment for career faculty, which includes provisions for notice periods, increased workload stability, and an expedited arbitration process to name a few.
This new system applies to all represented career faculty and goes into effect on June 16, 2021, for 9-month appointments and on July 1, 2021 for 12-month appointments. It will eliminate the contract system for career faculty employment. Instead of being issued contracts that guarantee employment and allocated FTE for one, two, or three years, all career faculty will have an “expectation of continued employment” at their current FTE. Layoffs require a notice period before a career faculty member’s job is terminated.
Effective immediately, all new offers of employment and renewal appointments issued prior to June 16, 2021 for represented career faculty will reflect the new system of ongoing employment.
