Some Portland State University faculty who were laid off as part of cost-cutting measures from last school year are stuck in limbo.

Last month, an arbitration decision from an independent mediator ordered the university to reinstate the jobs and provide back pay for 10 non-tenure-track faculty members.

But the impacted faculty, who have been out of work since July, learned this week that Portland State has no plans to give them their jobs back, according to PSU’s faculty union, the American Association of University Professors.

“It’s not clear to me what strategy PSU is pursuing or what the larger game is, but it doesn’t seem to be a healthy one,” said PSU-AAUP President Bill Knight. “It looks like another instance of bad faith on the part of the university, not respecting the arbitration they agreed to.”

The November decision was part of a grievance process filed by PSU-AAUP earlier this year. The union argued that the university failed to follow previously agreed upon layoff procedures in the union’s contract. The arbitrator agreed with the union’s position.

At the time, PSU said the settlement was misguided and that it was exploring options to appeal, even though the arbitrator’s decision was binding. A Portland State spokesperson said the university doesn’t have an additional statement at this time.

Arbitration is a method that employers and unions use to quickly settle and provide final decisions on contract disputes.

Ignoring the orders of this type of settlement is extremely unusual, said Gordon Lafer, a professor with the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center.

“I’ve been in the labor movement for 30 years,” Lafer said. “I honestly have never heard of this happening. Not just by a university, but by any employer, public or private.”

Appeals are typically not part of the process.

“It’s not like this is a lower court and then there’s an appeals court,” Lafer said. “The arbitration process is the appeals. It’s the equivalent of the highest appeals court under the contract.”

PSU-AAUP’s options are limited.

The union can ask the arbitrator, who has legal jurisdiction over the case for 90 days after the initial decision, to clarify her award. They can also file an unfair labor practice with Oregon’s Employment Relations Board, a process that can take years to adjudicate.

For now, legal counsel with PSU-AAUP says they will give Portland State a chance to back off and reinstate the laid-off faculty.

Labor leaders from across the state and nationally say PSU’s moves undermine union contracts. They are keeping a close eye on what happens next.

“More than 51,000 AAUP members nationwide are watching the Portland State administration’s troubling pattern of disregarding shared governance and union contracts — and we are prepared to take action,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the national AAUP. “We expect these ten non-tenure-track union siblings to be reinstated immediately, per the binding arbitration ruling.”

Rejecting to follow the arbitration decision shows that PSU is willing to break the law and refuse accountability, said American Federation of Teachers-Oregon President Ariana Jacob.

“This is a low moment in PSU’s history as an institution,” Jacob said. “In this political moment, we need our university leaders to be fighting to protect higher education as a public good, not breaking the law in order to attack itself.”

These labor fights come as Portland State continues to address long-standing budget shortfalls caused by declining enrollment, rising personnel costs and stagnant state support.

PSU is preparing for more budget cuts in the future and working out the details of a plan to cut $35 million from its budget by 2027.

Part of the plan includes accountability and transparency provisions that would allow more faculty, staff and student input on university budget decisions. But the university’s reaction to the arbitration decision is not doing much to build confidence among PSU’s faculty members, said Knight.

“We’re in a situation where AAUP and the university could be partnering to work on the revenue and enrollment issue, to work on avoiding shrinking state support for higher education,” Knight said. “We could do all that work if they weren’t acting in bad faith.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/12/05/portland-state-university-faculty-union/