YSU and its faculty reach tentative agreement

By Denise Dick | February 17, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

After months at the bargaining table and one rejected tentative pact already, Youngstown State University and its faculty union have reached another tentative agreement.

Ron Cole, a university spokesman, said the agreement had been reached between the university and the YSU-Ohio Education Association, which represents the roughly 370 faculty members.

Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez, the union’s chief negotiator, confirmed that.

Neither Cole nor Palmer-Fernandez would provide details of the pact.

The union is expected to vote this week with the trustees’ vote to follow next week, Cole said.

Both the faculty contract and that of the Association of Classified Employees expired last August.

The faculty’s negotiating team was elected in May 2013.

Negotiating teams for both YSU and its faculty union have been here before.

Last November, the union rejected a tentative agreement reached earlier that month and unanimously approved by university trustees.

Faculty members viewed it as a second concessionary contract because although the old agreement had called for bonuses and wage increases for faculty, the loss of extended teaching service, reduction in summer pay and other changes amounted to an overall reduction.

The teams then returned to negotiations.

Cole declined to divulge the status of negotiations with the ACE union, which includes secretaries, parking personnel, groundskeepers and other personnel, citing a news blackout.

Last December, YSU trustees unanimously rejected a fact finder’s report for a new contract with the 300-member union.

The fact finder recommended wage and step freezes but included a “me-too” clause, meaning that if any other striking bargaining union receives a wage increase, ACE members would get the same increase.