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YSU faculty union approves a tentative agreement
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YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown State University’s faculty union has approved an agreement for its three-year contract with the YSU administration for 2017-2020.
There were 174 votes in favor of the agreement, nine votes against and one abstention, said A.J. Sumell, union president and economics professor.
“It is fair to say both sides – the administration and faculty – are happy to put negotiations behind us so we can focus on what matters, which is student success, teaching our classes, doing our research and trying to improve quality of life in this community,” he said. “This is something every part of the YSU community can get behind. Now we can get behind improving the community more because we are not distracted by negotiations.”
Document: YSU/YSU-OEA Tentative Agreement
This decision comes after the union also voted to approve an amended fact finder’s report Sept. 20.
Also on Sept. 20, YSU’s Board of Trustees rejected the fact finder’s report for the faculty union’s contract, citing a technicality. Provost Martin Abraham said at the time the technicality is that the board is not allowed to approve an amended fact finder’s report.
He added that the tentative agreement, which the faculty voted on Monday, “looks essentially like” the amended report, just written in contract language.
The amended report is the result of changes by both faculty and administration.
The tentative agreement includes many of the same items listed in the amended fact finder’s report, such as: base salary increases; increases for minimum salaries; new ranks; summer compensation changes; a flattened employee insurance contribution; and two side-letter agreements regarding academic rank bonuses and a safeguarded faculty workload agreement.
The base salary increases are 2 percent this year and 2.5 percent in each of the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years.
The fact finder’s report, issued Sept. 12 by Susan Grody Ruben of the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals of Cleveland, recommended eliminating the role of instructors and creating senior lecturers and lecturers and establishing new salary minimums for all five ranks.
Summer compensation in the tentative agreement states: “Faculty teaching undergraduate courses with enrollment of 15 or more as of 6 a.m. on the first day of the class shall receive $2,250 per teaching hour.”
“Faculty teaching undergraduate courses with enrollment of 11 through 14 as of 6 a.m. on the first day of the class shall be paid $1,900 per teaching hour. Undergraduate courses with enrollment of 10 or fewer as of 6 a.m. on the first day of the class may be canceled or compensated as a conference course. If the course is offered, faculty shall be paid $1,550 per teaching hour.”
Faculty teaching graduate or swing courses will be paid the same based on enrollment.
Employee insurance contributions are readjusted in the agreement to be a flat 15 percent starting the second year of the contract.
One of the side-letter agreements in the tentative agreement regarding a safeguarded faculty workload agreement states: “During the term of this Agreement, should the Board of Trustees amend University policy titled ‘Faculty workload’... to increase the standard workload [which includes teaching, research and service] for all full-time faculty bargaining unit members [excluding Lecturers and Senior Lecturers] beyond 24 workload hours per year, excluding summer sessions, all full-time faculty shall receive an immediate one-time 10 percent increase to base salary. This provision is triggered solely upon a change to the Board’s ‘faculty workload’ policy regarding the number of workload hours, or through other policy changes that accomplish the same result, and not a change to any individual faculty member’s workload.”
An item for which the faculty union has filed a grievance that is not included in the tentative agreement relates to transgender health care.
The amended fact finder’s report did not recommend adding specifically transgender care to the contract as “various transgender-related care is covered under the YSU health insurance plan” already.
Other grievances and concerns about the agreement by either the faculty union or the administration have not yet been released.
“We are relieved that this very long and difficult negotiation appears to be near a conclusion,” Sumell said.
The board of trustees must still meet and vote on the agreement.