Trustees at YSU slam ACE

Unlike seven years ago when then-president of Youngstown State University, Dr. David Sweet, and the board of trustees kowtowed to the union representing accountants, secretaries, clerks and others on campus, last week, a largely different group of trustees and the new president of YSU, James R. Tressel, threw down the gauntlet on the labor negotiations with the Association of Classified Employees.

The message was bold, clear and necessary: Get real.

In a move that could only be described as brazen, trustees voted 7-0 (two members were absent) to implement a tentative agreement that had been reached between negotiators of the university and ACE. Why brazen? Because a week earlier, the classified employees had rejected the agreement by a wide margin.

So now, the accountants, carpenters, computer operators, customer-service workers, custodians, electricians, nurses, laboratory technicians, clerks, secretaries and others must decide whether to grin and bear the smackdown from the trustees, or force the issue by going on strike.

Remember when?

Why portray the contract impasse in such negative terms? Because this writer has not forgotten the arrogance that members of ACE displayed when they pocketed bonuses they had not earned and did not deserve in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

For those readers who have put that travesty out of their minds, here’s a reminder:

Four hundred members of ACE each received a total of $8,250 over the three years. In 2008, the bonus check was for $1,125; in 2009, it was a ridiculous $4,500; and in 2010, the bonus amounted to $2,625.

And now for the kicker: the urban institution, with many students having to work to pay the tuition, fees and the cost of textbooks, shelled out more than $3 million in bonuses alone.

And what did the classified employees do for that windfall? Nothing, nada, zilch.

You see, it was part of the grand design by then-president Sweet and members of the board of trustees to buy labor peace. The union had filed a lawsuit to force the university to grant its members two additional personal days.

Of course, they came up with a doozie of a justification for the bonuses: The increase in enrollment. It will be recalled that YSU and most other colleges and universities in the country were attracting students at a record rate because there were no jobs as a result of the national economic recession.

So, here’s what Sweet and the trustees said: The annual bonus will be based on the increase in enrollment.

The only problem was that none of the classified employees had anything to do with enrollment.

To make matters worse, members of ACE also received pay raises and other incentives that all employees were granted in the three-year contracts.

That giveaway prompted this writer to go off on a rant because it was clear Youngstown State was digging itself into a deep financial hole.

And so when the national economy began to recover and jobs became available, Youngstown State’s enrollment took a nosedive. For the past four years, the number of full-time students has been dropping, and with it, so has revenue.

Thus, today, President Tressel and the board of trustees are faced with the reality of having to slash spending in order to balance the books.

Even though words such as “concessions,” “givebacks,” “wage freeze,” and, yes, “sacrifice” are foreign to public-sector employees, they have become the new reality for those, like the members of ACE, who have been on the gravy train for so long.

‘Job security’

In voting against the agreement, union members expressed concern about “job security.” While that is a goal of all workers, talking about it in this day and age shows the difference in thinking in the public- and private-sector workplaces.

The national recession was a wake-up call for those in the private sector who had thought that agreeing to wage freezes and making concessions would be enough to guarantee long-term employment.

By contrast, the recession had little effect on the attitude of those who feed at the public trough.

Members of ACE would do well to consider this truth: If they go on strike, it will simply confirm that they have blinders firmly in place.