CAMPUS LABOR EATS UO’S FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT
EUGENE, August 26
(Press release from UOSW-UAW Local 8121)
After we winning a historic first contract last spring, many student workers received recent notice of job cuts, either the UO deciding to not reappoint them in the fall or to replace their position entirely with students eligible for work-study.
These job cuts are not layoffs in legal name, but in effect: As the University faces a $25 million budget deficit and slashes education programs across the board, the UO chooses to harm its student body by stripping workers of their jobs and our campus of its essential services after little to no communication with those affected most by these reckless decisions.
Over 50 dining workers across multiple workplaces received non-reappointment
notices citing performance issues, which were not communicated until the day notices were sent out. Central Kitchen has not reappointed any student workers.
For many dining workers who have been reappointed, shift availability issues have taken them completely off the schedule.
“It’s really upsetting to not have any real transparency from management or the University,” dining worker Bella Hoffert-Hay says. “These non-reappointments make it evident that our administration does not care about workers or this campus. So many of my coworkers have been here for their entire college careers and we feel deeply betrayed by these cuts.”
Other workers worry about job stability and culture in workplaces which now prioritize work-study students.
Forest Reszka has worked with Knight Library Access Services for almost four years. “My coworkers and I are responsible for pretty much every visible library function,” he says. “Out of the blue, we were all sent an email saying that we will not be reappointed in the fall unless we are on federal work-study. The UO has since walked that back because the date to get work-study had already passed, but now, it’s really up in the air as to whether we will have our jobs at the start of fall term.”
The UO has circumvented our just-cause discipline rights as outlined in our contract by invoking “performance issues” or austerity measures for reasons of job cuts instead of being transparent with our campus community about rebalancing a lopsided University budget the UO has failed to keep in check.
UOSW-UAW interim president Mae Braeclin also lost her dining job in this wave of job cuts. “These recent mass layoffs demonstrate the University administration’s commitment to financial austerity over student wellbeing,” she says. “Working class students require these jobs to be able to attend our university. We are dedicated as a Union to supporting each and every impacted member, but it is not just non-reappointed workers who are impacted. The trust we have as workers that our jobs are safe and secure is shaken. Our union — alongside our colleagues in UA, GTFF and SEIU — will not stop fighting for a fair financial restructure until we know that our members are protected from Administration’s recklessness.”
University of Oregon Student Workers rally on the picket line during a 2025 strike for a fair first contract.
UOSW-UAW launched a form to collect information from workers who have had their jobs cut and connect them with the appropriate resources, including unemployment benefits, if possible. Impacted workers can fill out the form here: bit.ly/lostjob8121.
Student worker job cuts are just another devastating wave of what Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine has called an erasure of “campus expertise,” where around 25 layoffs of tenure-track faculty by September will “deprive students of critical education” in “Palestine, Israel and Middle East conflicts.”
Seven key programs in these areas are on the chopping block: Arab Studies; Classics; German and Scandinavian; Holocaust Studies; Judaic Studies; Religious Studies; Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies; with History; Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies; and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies sure to follow with “significant reductions,” according to FSJP’s August 19 statement.
United Academics, who will soon begin impact bargaining over fall and spring layoffs, also spoke out about 13 more career faculty laid off by the UO — including the University’s refusal to “turn over information about the particular faculty members and units affected by its spring layoffs” in an August 18 newsletter.
There will be a Rally at Johnson Hall for the delivery of the petition 10:00 am on Friday, August 29th. The public is invited to attend.
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