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ACE union turns down YSU's 'final and best' offer
SEE ALSO: Settlement requirement riles YSU Academic Senate
YOUNGSTOWN
The Association of Classified Employees at Youngstown State University has voted down a “best and final” contract offer.
The union voted Wednesday evening, overwhelmingly rejecting the contract. Union President Connie Frisby said afterward that 231 out of 282 active members voted, with 195, or 84.4 percent, voting against it.
Thirty-six, or 15.6 percent, voted to accept it.
The union includes about 300 secretaries, administrative assistants, parking attendants, groundskeepers and others.
They have been working without a contract since Aug. 15 and have been in negotiations with the university for more than a year, Frisby said.
“I was surprised at the outcome,” she said.
Frisby said the union did not survey the members about the contract after the vote, but their biggest concern before negotiations was job security.
“I don’t feel their concern about job security is addressed,” she said.
Subcontracting is “a big problem,” she said, and layoff notification was reduced “dramatically,” from 63 days’ notice to 14 days.
Frisby said that doesn’t give people time to find out if retirement is an option when they’re faced with a layoff notice.
She said employees faced with layoffs make appointments in Columbus to see if they are eligible for retirement instead under the Public Employees Retirement System.
Frisby said the union notified the university about the vote Wednesday evening through its human-resources director, Allan Boggs.
She said she doesn’t know what will happen next.
“We’d be willing to go back to the table,” she said.
University spokesman Ron Cole could not be reached after the vote to comment.
University trustees last December rejected a fact-finder’s report for a new ACE contract.
That report recommended wage and step freezes but included what’s effectively a “me-too” clause.
If any other striking bargaining unit receives a wage increase, “then the ACE bargaining unit shall receive the same wage increase effective on that same date,” the report said.
Hourly pay for ACE members ranges from $12.61 to $30.86.