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Portland State University’s faculty and academic professionals union declared an impasse Thursday afternoon, moving the campus closer to the first strike in its history.
The bargaining team for PSU’s American Association of University Professors has been in negotiations with the university for a new contract since June 2024, says PSU spokeswoman Katy Swordfisk. The university, Swordfisk says, has been “engaged in good-faith” negotiations and started mediation Nov. 15.
The union doesn’t feel the same way. It says the university has been reluctant to budge on a number of points of contention, including staffing and compensation.
The PSU-AAUP chapter represents 1,172 workers at the university. Chapter president Emily Ford says the entire negotiations process has taken much longer than the union anticipated. She lists a host of things the two parties cannot agree on: understaffing of student support services like advising, cost-of-living increases, and faculty consolidations. “There’s no consensus on much of anything at this point,” Ford says.
“I couldn’t say that declaring impasse was about just one thing,” Ford adds. “It was about a whole host of issues that our members need in order to support our students, so that we can thrive as employees, but we can also thrive as people who support students.”
Faculty layoffs are a big sticking point for the union. In December, PSU issued 17 non-tenure track faculty layoff notices, which come as the university faces an $18 million budget deficit in the upcoming fiscal year. That deficit is caused in part by consistently declining enrollment at the university. (Most faculty members without tenure are teaching faculty, and affected members are set to lose their jobs on June 15, 2025.)
At the time, PSU president Ann Cudd said consolidation was part of PSU’s four-part financial adjustment plan to help address the deficit. That plan’s most hefty focus is on program revitalization, which is meant to adjust or eliminate less popular programs. But Ford says faculty on the chopping block include members who taught overenrolled courses or had waitlists, and they taught courses required for majors.
Ford adds PSU’s Faculty Senate passed a vote of no confidence regarding PSU’s program revitalization program. She says faculty has expressed concern that decisions are being made without collaboration.
Researchers at the university are also concerned about the impacts of President Donald Trump’s administration, which has rapidly chopped federal grant funding nationwide. Ellis Hews, a PSU-AAUP member and a senior research assistant at the Institute on Aging, says researchers need a contract passed to maintain bridge funds at PSU. Those funds support researchers who are experiencing delays in federal funding.
Hews adds researchers, like faculty, have been driven out of living in the PSU area as costs have increased.
“We bring in millions of dollars of grant funding, and we’re not treated like that,” Hews says. “We’re treated pretty poorly in terms of our job conditions, even though we’re responsible for bringing in that money to the university.”
The union’s declaration of an impasse—indicating it has no faith that it’ll make progress on bargaining—marks a turning point in negotiations. If the two parties do not come to an agreement by March 30, faculty could strike at the university for the first time in its history.
Swordfisk says the university is working with PSU-AAUP and the mediator to schedule additional negotiation sessions.
“PSU remains committed to reaching a fair agreement that meets the needs and interests of our employees, protects our students’ investment in their future, advances PSU’s strategic goals, and supports our long-term financial sustainability,” Swordfisk says.
Over the past month, Portland City Councilors Candace Avalos, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo and Mitch Green have sent letters to PSU administrators expressing their support for the union. Avalos, who has worked at PSU, wrote she stood in solidarity with PSU-AAUP “in their efforts to protect against layoffs, ensure fair wages, and uphold the values of equity and inclusion that PSU champions.”
Ford says that if a strike starts, the university will effectively shut down its operations across teaching, research and student support. The PSU-AAUP strike fund, which launched Jan. 6, has raised about $61,000 of its $75,000 goal. That fund’s intention is to allow members to strike without “undue financial hardship,” according to a union release.
“I really think that a work stoppage at the university would shut down all teaching and learning until the administration could prioritize teaching and learning, and the students and the workers who provide the day to day support and teaching for them,” Ford says. “The whole reason the university exists would shut down.”