EUGENE, Ore. — A union of graduate student teachers at the University of Oregon has voted to authorize a strike while negotiations with the administration stall.
The graduate students’ last contract expired March 31, The Eugene Register-Guard reported.
Major issues such as wages and health care costs remain unsettled.
The negotiations pit graduate students’ arguments about low compensation against an administration struggling to contain the UO’s overall costs and reduce its need to impose tuition increases.
A strike wouldn’t take place until the fall, when the union, the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, would take another strike vote to ensure new student teachers have a say.
The union said this week that 98 percent of its members who cast ballots voted for strike authorization, but declined to say how many of the 1,476-member union cast ballots.
Before the union can go on strike, labor laws require both sides to declare an impasse, work with a mediator to try to come to terms for at least 15 days and then hold a cooling-off period of 30 days.
