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Strike authorization, no confidence resolution approved by YSU faculty
By Denise Dick
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 Wednesday 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.
The strike authorization vote, however, doesn’t mean that a strike is going to happen.
Another joint bargaining session is set for Tuesday. Palmer-Fernandez says he’s not hopeful an agreement will be reached.
Cole said the university administration is hopeful and optimistic an agreement can be reached. He said the administration “remains committed to negotiating a contract that includes fair pay and health care benefits to all employees” but doing so within the budget constraints that continue to face the university.
The health care issue if not resolved in Tuesday’s session will go before a fact-finder Nov. 10. The union cannot issue its 10-day notice of intent to strike until that process is complete.
The fact-finder has until late November to issue his or her report which both the union and the trustees could vote upon.
If it’s rejected, then the union could issue its intent to strike notice to the State Employment Relations Board and strike any time 10 days after that.
At the same meeting as the strike authorization, members passed the no confidence resolution.
Annette Burden, union president, said “administration” means “everyone that’s in charge” who is nonfaculty and nonstaff.
“This is not about Gabriel and not about me,” she said. “The faculty has been disgruntled for a very long time. They’re demoralized.”
She said the faculty feels they’ve made sacrifices and gotten nothing in return.
The resolution says the trustees and administration “have failed to interact with faculty in the spirit of collaboration, cooperation and transparency” and have shown a “lack of respect for faculty.”
In a written statement, Burden said the resolution doesn’t indicate unwillingness on the union’s part to work “collaboratively with the administration or with the board in the future.”
Cole said these are difficult times and as a result difficult decisions had to be made.
“We hope we can move together collaboratively to continue to face these challenges and meet them face on and to work together for the betterment of our university and our students,” he said.