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Hundreds of Portland Community College employees from two unions went on strike Wednesday morning, marking the start of the first community college strikes in Oregon’s history.
Both PCC’s Federation of Faculty and Academic Professionals and the college’s Federation of Classified Employees unions have been at odds with the administration for months over midterm conversations regarding salary and benefits. (Both unions have contracts that run between 2023 and 2027 but have provisions built into them that allow for these conversations halfway through.) PCCFFAP has about 1,600 members, and there are 700 members in PCCFCE. They work across four PCC campuses, where more than 50,000 students are enrolled each year.
PCC announced on Tuesday it was moving all operations to remote beginning Wednesday; multiple union members said campuses were already locked down by early Wednesday morning, even though the strike began at 10:30 am, at the tail end of winter quarter, affecting students’ finals and the issuing of final grades for many courses.
In a collegewide alert, PCC informed students that if they did not hear from their instructors, their classes were likely affected by the strike. “If your class is still meeting or alternative work is assigned during the strike, we encourage you to participate fully,” the message reads. “If your class is not meeting due to the strike, you will not be penalized. PCC will provide students several days to finish coursework missed during a strike after classes start again.” Other deadlines could be adjusted as needed, the message continued.
The major point of contention between the college and its unions continues to be cost-of-living adjustments, which PCC refers to as “structure” increases. Representatives from both unions have argued that PCC’s offers have not matched inflation and that without adjustments, many employees will effectively take pay cuts. PCCFCE has sought a 3% cost-of-living increase in the third year of its contract and a 3.5% increase in the fourth year. PCCFFAP has sought 4.25% and 4.5% increases, respectively. (PCC has previously said it gets close to those demands when combining scheduled “step” increases, which reward experience, with cost-of-living adjustments. Both unions have insisted that step and cost-of-living increases are two separate numbers and that conflating them hurts part-time staff and employees who have maxed out their pay on the 17-step scale.)
PCC’s final offer on Tuesday night for both unions was no cost-of-living increase in the third year, and a 4% bump in the fourth year, significantly higher than a previous offer. The new offer, the college wrote on its bargaining website, would cost PCC more than the approximately $3.75 million it has in its contingency balance for both unions. “This offer is greater than the stated amount and will result in significant additional cuts for the upcoming biennium,” it wrote.
Michelle DuBarry, PCCFFAP’s executive vice president, says the administration “did move a lot” on Tuesday. She says the faculty union also tried to meet the administration with its own lower offer, proposing a 6% cost-of-living increase over two years in various configurations that would have resulted in some significant savings for the college.
But she says the administration effectively walked out. “We would have gone a couple more rounds,” she says. “We thought that was our path.”
In a similar vein, PCCFCE contract action team chair Justin Eslinger says the classified union tried to reach a deal with the administration on Tuesday night, with a final offer coming down close to a million dollars. (PCCFCE’s final Tuesday proposal was confidential.) He says negotiations ended when management said they weren’t authorized to move beyond their final offer.
“In the end, we were several million dollars apart,” Eslinger says. “Negotiations ended last night [when] they did not have the ability to continue negotiating with us. There was no point continuing the conversation last night.”
James Hill, a spokesman for PCC, says unions were not prepared to continue mediation sessions this week, and that the next session is scheduled for this coming Monday. “At this time, I would say PCC is committed to ongoing conversations with our union partners as we work toward a fair and equitable resolution,” he says. (Both DuBarry and Eslinger say their respective unions would be open to meeting ahead of Monday. “If the college has another proposal that they think our members would accept to end the strike, we would be willing to hear at any time,” Eslinger says.”)
Some of the administration’s movement in recent days may have come from a better-than-expected legislative session, where there were no cuts to higher education. Union leaders say negotiations have now pivoted to focusing on potential future cuts. PCC’s president, Dr. Adrien Bennings, has been spearheading a fiscal sustainability plan to increase reserves over a number of years.
DuBarry says PCCFFAP is ultimately negotiating a two-year contract and its members don’t feel buy-in on the fiscal plan. “We know the revenue, there’s not any uncertainty anymore, and so we don’t think that [Bennings] should be balancing future budgets on the backs of current employees,” she says. “We can deal with 2027 [realities] in 2027.”
Striking employees also have new leverage thanks to a law that went into effect Jan. 1 that requires public employers to provide unemployment benefits to striking workers after two weeks. WW examined those dynamics in a recent story.
On Wednesday morning, hundreds of faculty and staff picketed in front of PCC’s Cascade campus—one of four picket line locations for the first day of the strike. Members in both unions waved signs as drivers passing by honked their horns. At times, employees grew emotional as the reality of the strike set in.
Aenghus Taylor, an instructional administrative assistant for social sciences and ethnic studies at the college and a Cascade representative of PCCFCE, says they know of many employees in PCCFCE who have maxed out their step increases and can barely afford to support families or their livelihoods in Portland.
“Classified members make some of the lowest wages in the college. For our members to be willing to go out on strike and forgo their wages, the offer has to be unsustainable, unlivable,” Taylor says. “Our members realize that the current offer is actually a higher risk to their financial safety than going on strike.”
Shane Horner, a math professor at PCC for more than two decades, says he was supposed to prep his students for a final on Wednesday. Instead, he offered the option to take it early or to wait until the strike ends, and says there’s still uncertainty about when he can input their final grades. “It’s not optimal for the students,” he says.
But Horner and other faculty members have said that students have been largely understanding about the strike. Many of them walked alongside their professors during the rainy morning.
“Every student has multiple messages for me, describing exactly how I’m supporting their learning today and where I’m going to be the second this strike ends,” says Ralf Youtz, another math professor. “All I want is a fair contract that my union and the classified union can agree to so we can support our students learning.”
