Unions to offer plans for better interaction

Union leaders have met with the labor-management panel.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University's faculty and classified employee unions will reveal today what action they plan to take regarding a Labor-Management Review Panel's recommendations to improve relations.
The panel, appointed by President David C. Sweet after strikes by both unions in August, came up with a list of 24 recommendations last month aimed at improving the labor relations climate on campus.
Of that number, 13 require some form of union action, such as replacing all members of the last contract bargaining teams and agreeing to a news blackout during future negotiations.
The two unions said they will announce their intentions in a joint press conference at 5:30 p.m. today in Kilcawley Center on campus.
The presidents of both unions, representing 380 faculty and 400 classified employee members, have refrained from making any comment on the panel's recommendations, saying they both wanted to meet first with the panel for some clarification of its findings.
They had that chance in a two-hour session Friday that also included representatives of YSU's 135-member Association of Professional & amp; Administrative Staff union, which begins its contract negotiations with the university in April.
Another consideration
Both the faculty and classified union presidents had also indicated they wanted to see what the university administration was going to do with the report before they made any commitments.
Sweet has said that some of the recommendations can be addressed quickly by the administration, but others will require some extensive review and discussion. Others will require joint participation by the administration, unions and/or trustees, he said.
He plans to present his plan of action to the university's board of trustees Thursday.
Sweet has already implemented some of the easier recommendations, agreeing to take the lead in re-establishing a relationship with the unions and asking all members of the administrative bargaining teams for the faculty and classified contracts to step down from those positions.
He said last week that he's already had meetings with the heads of all four campus unions in an effort to begin the process of rehabilitating labor relations on campus.
The panel has said that its recommendations should be implemented as a complete package by all sides. Sweet has declined to agree to that scenario, pointing out that he made no commitment to automatically accept and implement all recommendations coming out of the panel.