YSU trustees approve faculty union contract

YOUNGSTOWN

The Youngstown State University Trustees today approved a new faculty union contract. The union had approved the contract last week.

Voting against the agreement were Trustees Harry Meshel and David Deibel.

Earlier today, the trustees' University Affairs committee had recommended ratification.

Last week, with 207 members of the YSU-Ohio Education Association voting, the agreement was approved by 17 votes.

The agreement calls for no bonus or increase in base pay the first year. The second year, there is a 1 percent base-pay increase and a $2,000 bonus for professors, $1,500 for associate professors, $1,300 for assistant professors and $1,000 for instructors.

The third year, the base-pay increase is 2 percent, and the bonuses are $1,000 for professors, $750 for associate professors, $650 for assistant professors and $500 for instructors.

The agreement also eliminates extended teaching service, or ETS, which the union says has been in the contract for 40 years.

This year and the second year of the contract, those eligible for retirement would receive a $40,000 buyout paid over four years in place of ETS. Such an option isn’t in place for the third year.

There’s also a reduction in summer pay.

Faculty members who teach during the summer are paid 3.25 percent of their salary per credit hour. The summer school cap is at $70,000 in the latest agreement, a reduction from $80,000 in the pact that expired last August.

The stipend for teaching distance learning also is eliminated in the second and third years of the pact.

The union has said that the bonuses were funded by the elimination of ETS and the raises financed by the reduction in summer compensation and elimination of the distance learning stipend.

Negotiations between the two sides had been ongoing for months, and the union rejected a prior tentative agreement that was unanimously approved by trustees. Union representatives have said the membership viewed the previous tentative agreement as concessionary.