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A group of Portland Community College faculty and staff members are calling for extra pay during the pandemic and better enforcement of COVID-19 safety protocols.
About 40 members of the PCC Federation of Faculty and Academic Professionals, the academic staff union at the college, and supporters participated in a protest outside campus last week, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
“This pandemic has been going on for so long and we have not gotten any extra support from the PCC administration for all the extra work we’ve had to do while we’ve been remotely teaching, remotely providing students services,” Julie Hastings, nominations and elections officer at the union, told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “All of the things we have to do now take twice as long, but we’ve been getting the same amount of pay.”
Union members want the college to provide pandemic stipends, decrease class sizes and offer employees the option to continue working remotely if possible in their position.
Laura Wadlin, union secretary, said the union has met with administrators, who have yet to meet the demands.
Nonetheless, she feels “confident” college leaders will respond to the requests “because the urgency behind our demands [is] just so clear,” she told Oregon Public Broadcasting.
