Advocate Online

In a period of economic contraction, uncertain funding in higher education, and increased demands for teaching and accountability, the protection and advancement of faculty rights and benefits becomes an imperative. This can rarely be done without the protections of a strong and united faculty union.

The recently completed negotiations by the Youngstown State University Chapter of the Ohio Education Association (YSU-OEA) is a case in point. The YSU-OEA has been associated with NEA for over 30 years and, today, 99 percent of its 360 faculty are union members.

In its recent negotiations, the union was faced with reports of Ohio’s funding crisis, the need for salary restraints and cuts in benefits. But rather than fold in the face of administrative and public pressure, the YSU-OEA negotiation team did a six-month systemic study of economic and noneconomic conditions on campus that became the basis for a factfinder’s report that validated its contractual demands.

During the negotiations, the YSU-OEA developed phone trees and communication networks to keep members informed of the status of bargaining. When the administration rejected the factfinder’s report, the union held informational meetings and the faculty overwhelmingly authorized a strike and began sporting buttons stating “Informed and Dangerous.”

As a result of bargaining preparation, extensive research, membership support, and a credible strike threat by the union, the administration was forced back to the bargaining table where a contract was quickly reached.

Specifically, not only did the union protect what many with the NEA consider a model contract in terms of participatory governance, it maintained all health care benefits, increased the number of faculty improvement leaves, and negotiated leaves of absence for domestic partners. The faculty will receive salary increases that average over 5 percent in each of the next three years.

Importantly, the YSU-OEA negotiated new language that enhanced release time for faculty development and distance learning. This provision includes specific contract language for release time for faculty engaged in the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Consistent with recommendations from the Visible Knowledge Project at Georgetown University’s Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, this is the first contract that we know of in higher education to contain such a specific provision. At Youngstown State University, the union makes us strong.

John Russo is the coordinator of the labor studies program at Youngstown State University. He recently co-authored the book, USA: Work and Memory in Youngstown, with Sherry Linkon.