'A very longtime coming': More than 550 Ohio University faculty announce plans to unionize
Ohio University faculty members are planning to unionize, making them among the state's last public university employees to do so.
The United Academics of Ohio University submitted more than 550 signed cards to the State Employee Relations Board in Columbus Friday to file for a union election. Organizers said nearly 70% of eligible full-time faculty at its Athens campus and five regional campuses were in favor of unionizing.
Faculty members gathered Tuesday for a rally on College Green to announce their decision to unionize, seeking better job security, compensation and academic freedom.
The union would be established through an association of the American Federation of Teachers and American Association of University Professors, representing all nonsupervisory tenure track, non-tenure track and instructional faculty across OU campuses.
Several faculty members also delivered a letter to Ohio University President Lori Stewart Gonzalez sharing their intent to unionize, and asked university leadership to work with them toward unionizing.
Gonzalez's spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Dispatch's request for comment Friday afternoon.
Ohio University faculty's decision to organize "a very longtime coming"
The decision to unionize "has been a very longtime coming," said Joe McLaughlin, an associate professor of English at Ohio University.
Organizing was in the works before the pandemic hit, but McLaughlin said a string of layoffs and buyouts, budget issues and lagging compensation motivated faculty to unionize now.
Dozens of administrators, nonunion faculty and classified staff members were laid off from 2020 to 2022, some of whom were rehired into different roles.
"Many of the people who left were early and mid-career, and some departments just got decimated," McLaughlin said.
While Ohio University has seen two years of rebounding freshman enrollment, McLaughlin said administrators have been slow to rehire faculty.
"We're here to prevent unnecessary firings again, but also influence the hiring back the university does do," he said.
Should Ohio University's union election be successful, only two state public universities will be without faculty unions: Ohio State University and Northeast Ohio Medical University.
Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. Sign up for Extra Credit, her education newsletter, here.
shendrix@dispatch.com
@sheridan120
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: 'A very longtime coming': Ohio University faculty announce plans to unionize
