As YSU faculty talks continue, strike authoritization vote planned

YOUNGSTOWN

The union representing Youngstown State University faculty will schedule a strike authorization vote for later this month.

The union’s negotiation team met Thursday and decided to conduct the vote, likely either Oct. 22 or Oct. 29.

It’s a marked turn from mid-August when the negotiating teams for the union and the university issued a joint news release announcing that a tentative agreement had been reached.

That agreement, though, didn’t address health insurance, and that’s the bone of contention now.

Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez, chief negotiator for the Youngstown State University-Ohio Education Association, expects the issue to go to fact-finding.

“We’re taking a two-pronged approach,” he said, referring to moving forward with the vote while negotiations continue regarding health insurance.

The union negotiator said the union team is trying to schedule negotiating sessions with the administrative team for next week, although he’s not hopeful that an agreement on the issue will be reached.

Ron Cole, a university spokesman, pointed out that the two sides reached a tentative agreement on all of the other issues in the contract except health care. A subcommittee was formed with representatives of all the university unions to work on the health-care issue, “which, admittedly, is a big issue,” he said. “That subcommittee has been meeting over the last several weeks.”

Read more on the talks in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.