Press

ATHENS, OHIO—The fight for job security, protected faculty voice, shared governance, and against low and stagnant wages at Ohio University hits a new milestone as nearly 800 Ohio University faculty members have the right to collectively bargain today after the State Employment Labor Relations Board certified that an overwhelming majority of faculty voted yes, 453 to 189.

Members of the United Academics of Ohio University join the more than 1.8 million members of the AFT across the country and the faculty at 12 unionized campuses across Ohio who are members of the AFT and the American Association of University Professors. The AFT is the largest higher education union in the country.

“SB 1/HB 6 is a slow motion wrecking ball aimed at Ohio’s public colleges and universities. It will strip faculty of their collective bargaining rights, demolish bedrock principles of academic freedom, overload administration with unfunded mandates, and put politicians in charge of what can be taught and discussed. This will drive talented faculty, staff, and students out of Ohio, lower the quality of research and education, and erode the prestige and reputation of some of the finest public universities in the country."

“Whether it’s providing students with a quiet place to do homework and parents with a safe and enriching place to bring young kids, serving as a community hub for resources on social services, employment, and other needs, or just providing free information and entertainment to all Ohioans, our public libraries deliver real tangible benefits to Ohio communities every day. To continue to provide robust public services and resources, libraries need more, not less, support from partners in state and federal government."

PICKERINGTON, OH — Librarians and other workers at Pickerington Public Library (PPL) voted overwhelmingly to ratify their first union contract. Members of the union, Pickerington Public Library United Staff (PPLUS), voted electronically throughout the last week. The PPL Board of Trustees voted to ratify the agreement during their Board meeting on Monday evening. The contract includes annual raises, longevity pay, additional paid leave, protection against unfair discipline, and a collaborative Labor-Management Committee.

"Now they’re trying to gut the Department of Education, and the people who will be harmed in the process will be children, college students, and families. Firing more than 1300 Department of Education workers, including hundreds who work on student financial aid and civil rights protections, will not reduce the deficit. Rather, it will create enormous harm by eroding the government's ability to support successful strategies that improve children’s academic outcomes and help students afford higher education."

“The Senators who voted to pass SB 1 may think that they’re targeting 'woke' professors, but the expansive nature of the bill means that they’re targeting every single student, professor, and staff member at Ohio’s public colleges and universities. They are so angry over their unproven theory that higher education is ideologically biased that they’re willing to take down our world-class system of public colleges and universities. Instead they should focus on the real issues affecting higher education in Ohio, like keeping tuition affordable and surviving tumultuous threats to federal scientific and health funding that schools rely on. As this bill moves to the Ohio House, we are urging representatives to either scrap this flawed bill or give serious consideration to amendments that will blunt the worst of the impacts.”

“As currently written, SB 1 will put Ohio’s world-class system of higher education at risk by stifling academic freedom, raising administrative costs, impeding recruitment and retention of talented faculty, and pushing more young adults out of Ohio,” said Melissa Cropper, OFT President and Secretary-Treasurer of the Ohio AFL-CIO. “The Senate can avert the worst of these risks by taking the time to consider amendments and make this bill better.”

“For more than twenty years, Ohio families have dealt with insufficient school funding. Parents, students, and educators have been asked to do more and more with less and less. The Fair School Funding Formula was designed to fund education based on what that education actually cost. Over the past four years, we have gotten closer to the goal of a fairly funded education system. The refusal to use current costs in the formula undercuts the Fair School Funding Formula as a whole by using old data to calculate financing for current expenses.  We are confident that the people of Ohio want their schools to be funded at levels that will afford all children the opportunity to live up to their potential, and we look forward to working with Gov. DeWine and the Ohio legislature to make that happen with a fair and fully funded formula.”

DELAWARE, OHIO — A strong majority of staff at Delaware County District Library (DCDL) voted to form their union, Delaware County United Library Staff (DCULS), according to secret ballot election results released today by Ohio’s State Employment Relations Board (SERB). The results showed that 82% of valid ballots voted in favor of the union. The new union, which includes 85 librarians and library workers, is the sixth group of Ohio library workers – and the fifth in central Ohio – to successfully organize with the Ohio Federation of Teachers since 2021.

"Ohio has world class colleges and universities because Ohio has world class higher education students, faculty, and staff. We deserve legislators who will work with us to solve problems like rising tuition and keep Ohio colleges and universities competitive in our region and in the world. SB 1 doesn’t do anything like that. Instead it uses culture war politics to attack workers’ rights and turn campuses into hostile environments for people of color, immigrants, and other marginalized communities."