Portland State Ordered To Reinstate Laid-Off Philosophy Faculty & Others
“Administrators who claim that their university is under financial distress must not be given carte blanche,” wrote members of the Department of Philosophy at Portland State earlier this past January, when three of its faculty members were told they’d be out of their jobs at the end of the 2024-25 academic year.
Part of Portland State University
Claims about budget shortfalls and the economic benefits of layoffs, program cuts, and restructurings must be investigated, proper procedures must be enforced, and administrators must be held accountable.
We’ve seen plenty of examples in which this hasn’t happened.
But it did happen at Portland State, where an arbitration ruling earlier this month ordered the university to give the laid-off professors their jobs back.
A faculty member writes:
You may have followed the saga of the three faculty members in the Philosophy Department at Portland State who lost their jobs this past year. Through our Union (AAUP), they and seven other laid-off PSU faculty filed a grievance, which went to formal arbitration. We have fantastic news to report: The judgment was announced earlier this week that they have won their grievance. The arbitrator made the unequivocal decision that “the grievants are to be restored to the positions they held prior to layoff and made whole for any losses sustained.”
This decision is important not just for our colleagues and our department but for other departments around the country facing cuts. The PSU administration did not follow proper procedure and did not engage in shared governance. It is gratifying that this was recognized and that the University will now need to reverse the decisions.
As we are all aware, these are very difficult times for universities all around the US. What this decision shows is that even when universities are facing budget cuts, administrators still have to fulfill their contractual obligations and treat their employees with decency.
We are extremely grateful to everyone who showed support for our department and colleagues.
According to the arbitrator, Dorothy C. Foley, “the university made its layoff decisions before it had sufficient evidence to support them. That is a violation of the collective bargaining agreement.”
You can read the arbitrator’s decision here.
Related: Portland State Philosophy Protests “Administrative Malfeasance”
Does anyone have any idea how this might port over to other cases, such as Sonoma State University’s recent closure of the philosophy dept. and many other programs? (I don’t know how similar those cases are.)
One important factor would be whether the faculty is unionized, which appears to have been the case w/ Portland State.
Yes, Sonoma State (and all Cal State Univ. campuses) are unionized and represented by the California Faculty Association (CFA).
(I’m a public-sector higher ed union staffer.) Union contract enforcement is primarily about the interpretation of the specific language of the collective bargaining agreement in question, and public university CBAs in the US exist under individual state labor laws as opposed to federal law, so each state has different standards. Arbitration rulings even from other public employers in the same state aren’t really precedential, only previous arbitration rulings about the CBA in dispute. This is distinct from findings made by each state’s labor board and courts about violations of state labor law, which are generally precedential for other employers in the state. The main time you’ll see other arbitration rulings cited is as examples of an interpretive principle. So this ruling doesn’t really help from a legal perspective outside of Oregon, although it’s a great organizing tool for showing people what can be won and motivating them to pick up the fight in their own workplaces.
The CBA I work with, for example, explicitly bars reinstatement as a remedy even in cases where the university is found to have wrongly separated someone from employment; if this had happened at my university and we had won, the faculty would have been awarded financial compensation but would still be out of a job.
Thanks for that insight! 🙏
let us not forget that the portland state university president with a history of union-busting is, you guessed it, a philosopher
“An enlightened capitalism will preserve and even promote the ability of workers to form unions.” – Ann Cudd (2012, p. 128)
sad trombone
let us also mot forget that wins like this due to union contract langauge do not necessarily save all your colleagues.
i know of a long-time portland state adjunct who did not have this recourse to save their livelihood.
Yes, this is very important. Also a good reason for adjuncts to unionize! It’s hard to do, I know. But better than the alternative.
arguably, psu’s adjunct union-busting tactics have actually been worse than the firing of tenured faculty. withholding what amounts to a pittance in order to show power over adjuncts trying to pay rent over the summer. classy stuff.