YSU faculty authorizes strike, declares no confidence in trustees, administration

YOUNGSTOWN

The union representing about 400 Youngstown State University faculty members voted to authorize a strike and approved a resolution of “no confidence” in the board of trustees and the administration.

YSU-Ohio Education Association has been working without a contract since Aug. 17. Although a tentative agreement was reached Aug. 15, that Agreement didn’t address health care.

That’s the sticking point in negotiations.

Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez, the union’s chief negotiator, said today that one difference between the two sides rests in the way the 15 percent of health-care costs is applied. It can be done with a sliding scale, meaning those who make more, pay more, or through a flat 15 percent to everyone, he said.

Palmer-Fernandez said the union supports the 15 percent sliding scale while the university supports the flat 15 percent.

“A clinical instructor making $41,000 a year who is on the family plan would have to pay another $960 in just the first year,” he said. “We think that is unconscionable.”

Ron Cole, a university spokesman, said that after the tentative agreement was reached in August, the health care issue of the contract was to be determined by the university’s Health Care Advisory Committee.

That committee includes representatives of the administration and all of the university’s unions. That committee agreed to a health care recommendation, which the faculty union rejected, Cole said.

“That’s why we are where we are today,” he said.

Read more about the matter in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.