Ohio State University Creating Roadblocks to Organizing Drive by Marion Campus Professors

 

For Immediate Release

May 09, 2022 

Namita Waghray (440) 305-1117 (cell) [email protected] (email)

 

Ohio State University Creating Roadblocks to Organizing Drive by Marion Campus Professors 

Ohio State University Administration Fight Union efforts

 

(Columbus, OH ) Over two months ago, on March 4, 2022, an overwhelming majority of the tenured and tenure-track faculty at the Ohio State University Marion campus submitted union authorization cards with AFSCME Ohio Council 8 to the Ohio State Employee Relations Board (SERB). If successful, the professors will be organizing the first professor employee union at OSU. They are advocating for pay and workload equity, to secure a unified voice for professors on the Marion campus, and to ensure professors can negotiate for benefits including health care and the opportunity to address workplace concerns as they arise. 

The Ohio State University administration has created a series of roadblocks that are delaying and obfuscating the federal rights these professors have to organize and form their union. The University is arguing that the professors at Marion are part of the larger university and cannot organize separately. However, satellite campuses like Marion have separate organizational structures, and the professors are held to separate standards. 

Associate Professor and union organizer Scott Kaplan believe that OSU should drop its legal maneuvering and let the professors vote in a union election. “OSU administration, and its board of Directors are stalling to intimidate and scare professors hoping they will drop their goal of organizing. We won’t. As professors, we teach double the course load of our Columbus campus peers, and are expected to do the same amount of research, all while working with severely limited resources and support. We want OSU to let its employees exercise their rights freely without fear or intimidation.”

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AFSCME Ohio Council 8’s members provide the vital services that make Ohio happen. With members in communities across the state, serving as everything from nurses to social workers, child care providers to sanitation workers — AFSCME Ohio Council 8 advocates for fairness in the workplace, safe and healthy worksites, excellence in public services, and freedom and opportunity for all of Ohio’s working families.