The Post on Shared Gov.

Editorial: Public puzzle (The Post)

In this editorial, The Post took OU to task for "Once again, ...attempting to withhold documents that should be public records." Apparently they were denied after requesting access to the reduction strategies that OU departments and offices submitted to the Budget Planning Council.

In the editorial, they offered the following view of shared governance: "The economy is weak, and cuts will need to be made. But the constituents of this university need to be a part of the decision making. Shared governance does not mean the university's top brass makes a decision and the students, faculty and staff discuss it afterward. It means that the people discuss every step, offering input and helping to shape solutions before the university makes its decisions - a closed council with "representatives" is not enough. Yes, it's messy. The pieces don't always fit together just right. But if OU is serious about transparency, the discussion needs to be carried out in the public forum."

The drive toward unionization focuses on shared governance, so I thought this editorial might generate some discussion.

Union Brings The Right to Participate

On March 11th I blogged about the Provost's recent announcement regarding an administrative proposal to restructure some of the colleges. I mentioned that the proposal was created by the academic deans, although "faculty will be asked to assist in the refinement of the proposal." In other words, the important decisions have been made by the administration, but the faculty can work on the details.

Joe Bernt from OU-AAUP recently sent an email to faculty that included a flyer entitled "Why Were Faculty Excluded from Planning College Reorganizations and Eliminations?" The flyer discussed this mess in detail, and it asked, "Would collective bargaining have changed this situation?"

Would collective bargaining have changed this situation? Yes. The union contract negotiated by faculty at the University of Cincinnati stipulates in Article 27 that faculty shall "be entitled to share significantly in the responsibilities for program development, program review, department review, and department and college reorganization."

The faculty at the University of Cincinnati, represented by the AAUP, have an enforceable contractual right to participate--to have a voice and responsibilities--in decisions regarding restructuring.

Tired of being ignored? Claim your voice: sign an AAUP card today asking the State of Ohio for a vote on collective bargaining!

Download a card from http://www.ouaaup.org/card.html

Health Care Mess Avoided with Union

President May Bypass Faculty Senate's Rejection of Health Benefit Cuts (Athens NEWS, 3/12/09)

OU President Offers Plan with Fewer Health Benefit Cuts (Athens NEWS, 3/14/09)

The news articles above are important reading to see a sampling of the messes we can AVOID by moving to collective bargaining. Here's a quick and dirty summary...Ohio University is in the midst of a budget crunch for a variety of reasons ranging from reductions in state funding to excessive increases in administrative salaries. That said, the administration is interested in shifting more health-care costs to faculty. OU's Budget Planning Council recommended a variety of cuts, but Faculty Senate rejected their plan and offered another. That's where the "negotiations" essentially ended. This past Friday, President McDavis unilaterally made sweeping changes (some positive, some negative) to health benefits for Ohio University employees. The new benefits will take effect July 1, 2009. End of discussion.

Had we been unionized, we would have avoided this mess altogether. Our collective bargaining agreement would have outlined our benefits and the associated costs. We wouldn't need to worry about any unilateral changes, because the agreement would lock our benefits in place for the duration of the contract. Then, several months before the contract expires, faculty representatives and university representatives would enter into honest negotiations. Regardless of whether we'd end up paying more or less for our benefits, we'd have a legitimate say in the final agreement, we'd vote on it, and then that agreement would lock our benefits in place for the duration of the contract.

Provost Announces Restructuring

Today we all received a message from Provost Krendl. Although her message did not address collective bargaining, part of it was particularly relevant. Many faculty are pushing for unionization because they feel marginalized. Although shared governance is given lip service, the administration is making important decisions without adequate input from the faculty. In today's message, the Provost introduced a proposal for restructuring some colleges. The proposal was created by the academic deans, although "faculty will be asked to assist in the refinement of the proposal."

In other words, the important decisions have been made by the administration, but the faculty can work on the details. In my opinion, that's insulting, and it undermines the essence of shared governance. I would like our faculty to develop a collective bargaining agreement in which shared governance is operationally defined, using specific guidelines and concrete examples, so that when the administration believes restructuring is necessary, they will understand that faculty input is needed before important decisions are made. Below is the text of Provost Krendl's message. Your comments care welcome.

Dear Colleagues:

Thirty years after the last significant collegiate restructuring of the university, major shifts have taken place in the landscape of higher education. How we learn, what we learn, and why we learn have been transformed through the computers that sit on our desks, the degree to which boundaries between disciplines have changed or have been erased, and the host of challenges (most of them global in nature) that dominate our scholarship and teaching. The goal still remains to ensure that the "means of education shall forever be encouraged," but those means are changing in ways that even the most prescient could not have imagined thirty years ago.

In light of those changes, the academic deans of Ohio University are finishing a proposal outlining alternative means of structuring some colleges. That proposal grew out of discussions about how a new set of academic structures could capitalize on areas of existing strengths, promote emerging strengths, realize new revenue opportunities, and create administrative efficiencies. At the heart of the proposal is a conceptual framework that creates organizational structures to support the academic needs of the next generation of students and faculty. The framework was built on a set of goals that are listed below. I anticipate that the proposal will be finished early next week, and as soon as it is completed I will provide copies to the faculty.

As I indicated during a meeting held on March 5, 2009, with the chairs and directors, faculty will be asked to assist in the refinement of the proposal. To facilitate the gathering of input, deans will hold open forums in some colleges and departmental or school meetings in others. Our ultimate goal with academic restructuring is to move from proposal to implementation planning before the end of Spring Quarter.

Sincerely,

Kathy A. Krendl
Executive Vice President and Provost

ACADEMIC RESTRUCTURING GOALS

Proposed realignments, where applicable, must:

* Support emerging areas of academic strength.
* Allow colleges and academic programs to develop more fully their potential and their institutional missions.
* Create new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.
* Identify ways of more strategically allocating resources.
* Facilitate the creation or consolidation of academic programs needed to further the university's long-term academic aspirations.
* Offer new possibilities to enhance research and creative activities.
* Assist with the university's ability to enhance student performance.
* Confront and resolve issues that have been longstanding barriers to operating as one university.
* Offer the potential to help the university meet external mandates, particularly those associated with the University System of Ohio

AAUP Better Option for Faculty

AAUP's Effective History Makes it Better Option for Faculty (The Post)

This letter to the editor was written by Katherine Jellison, Professor of History. It was in response to the CIF's suggestion that the AAUP is an ineffective organization.

The latest public statement from the Committee for an Independent Faculty (OUCIF) states that the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is an "ineffectual" organization. Faculty certainly need to determine the effectiveness of anyone they might choose as their representative, but OUCIF's charge, which casts doubt on whether OU faculty can trust the AAUP to represent them competently, is erroneous.

OUCIF's assertions refer to a 6/8/2007 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Robin Wilson, who reported that the 92nd meeting of the "premier faculty association" of the U.S. focused on the organization's financial and membership problems, and that the AAUP's role in collective bargaining remained controversial among non-union members. The AAUP challenged Wilson's portrait as "rife with anonymous sources, misrepresentations and partial quotations that changed the meaning of what was actually both said and meant" (www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2008/MJ/Feat/warr.htm), but the key point to note today is that regardless of whether Wilson's characterization was accurate in 2007, this snapshot in time is not accurate now. A year after the original story, on 6/27/2008, Wilson told Chronicle readers that AAUP had a "restructuring plan in place" that represented "big steps on the path" to organizational health. In addition, membership had risen 7 percent that year, and deficits were erased.

AAUP is the only organization in the U.S. to work exclusively on behalf of university faculty. Local chapters and state conferences supplement the national organization. In its 93-year history, AAUP has provided the foundational statements on academic freedom, shared governance and the host of professional standards that guide the academic mission. Its collective bargaining chapters, which are locally controlled, empower faculty to protect these standards through legally binding negotiation procedures. The OU Faculty Handbook is based on AAUP principles.

Ohio has a strong AAUP conference and extremely successful AAUP chapters, some of which serve as collective bargaining representatives. Even as the national AAUP grappled with its managerial challenges two years ago, the faculty at the University of Akron entered into their first ever collective bargaining agreement. Nationally, too, important work proceeded despite the bumpy road. For example, AAUP was instrumental to the successful outcome of the most important court case concerning tenure in recent years. Otero-Burgos v. Inter-American University was a significant victory and will have major implications for the future (www.aaup.org/AAUP/newsroom/Highlights/otero.htm).

AAUP-led collective bargaining offers OU faculty a proven, effective, professional alternative to the conditions we currently find ourselves in: salary freezes, shifts in health care costs to faculty, limitations on health care options by removing Holzer Clinic from the PPO network, attempts to redefine the provost position as strictly administrative, displacement of Faculty Senate committees by administratively appointed groups and the sundry other measures that have eroded real faculty influence at OU for more than a decade and a half. Is there another, better option that, like collective bargaining, gives faculty legal powers to protect its livelihood and authority in matters of shared governance? The answer is likely to be no, and so I urge all faculty to consider signing the AAUP cards we have received in our boxes (or print one out from www.aaup-ou.org/card.html). By doing so, we are requesting an election to determine whether or not we should form a collective bargaining unit under OU-AAUP auspices. Let's seriously explore all options, especially collective bargaining, which can give us the legal resources we currently lack.

Health Care and OU-AAUP

Today I have two email messages to post for posterity. One is another half-baked message from the Committee for an Independent Faculty (CIF). They are questioning whether the AAUP is an "effectual organization." If interested, you can visit their site for the full text of their message. They refer to a 2007 article in the Chronicle that describes some problems the national AAUP had at the time. But as usual, the CIF has tried to mislead faculty by telling only a small part of the story. For example, the CIF failed to mention the AAUP's response to the article. Although the CIF would like faculty to believe otherwise, the AAUP is a strong, well-established organization. Since 1915, the AAUP's primary mission has been to advance academic freedom and shared governance. And don't forget, Ohio University has had a local chapter since 1935!

Let's move on to some information that is helpful to Ohio University. Kevin Uhalde, the President of OU-AAUP, has recently emailed faculty to clarify the AAUP's position on heath care issues soon to be discussed in Faculty Senate. The text of that message is below. Your comments are welcome!

Dear Colleagues:

I apologize in advance for sending another general email so soon. But I've been asked by a number of colleagues to clarify OU-AAUP's position on important health care matters soon to come up in Faculty Senate.

The health care discussion is important no matter where you stand with regard to unions. For me, it's also a clear cut reason why we should want a union sooner rather than later.

I started taking my son to Holzer Clinic when the pediatrician we'd seen before packed up and left. That's Athens, of course. Affordable houses, short commutes, wonderful people. But many professionals don't stay long. Seeking care for premature babies (or even ordinary childhood illnesses and allergies), for cancer treatment or heart problems, and especially on weekends or in the middle of the night, all quickly reveal the challenges of small town living.

It means having limited options and that means those options we have are precious for happiness and well-being.

The most important discussion to take place about health care in recent years is taking place now. Unfortunately, as so often at OU, the discussion is taking place after many potentially life-changing decisions have been made without our being involved.

The administration would like to take this year -- a year when the increased cost of health care is in fact much lower than in recent years, when our health care nonetheless continually runs a surplus, and a month after the president acknowledged breaking the rules by imposing a premium increase without seeking Faculty Senate approval -- in this year the administration would like to make health care worse and more expensive for us all.

On top of that, the administration wants many of us to take ourselves, our children, and our parents to new doctors whom they approve. Those would be the doctors that cost less, always a good sign of quality. Or stay with the ones we know and trust but pay more.

The administration has tried to guilt faculty out of protesting over such actions by pretending the alternative is layoffs but that is not the case. Meanwhile OUCIF faculty quiver at the "horrors" of unions and compare them to smoking cigarettes.

A collective bargaining agreement would prevent sudden drastic actions and require the administration to involve faculty in a meaningful way. The administration at University of Akron attempted similarly drastic reforms while the faculty was organizing after a successful election: the administration paid over a million dollars for what was ruled to be unfair labor practices. An AAUP officer and health care expert (currently Eastern Michigan Professor of Accounting, Dr. Howard Bensis) conducts workshops to educate faculty for negotiating health care benefits and does site specific analyses.

The bottom line for OU-AAUP is that if tough decisions must be made, the faculty is better off making them for ourselves. That can happen with collective bargaining. The only way to know whether other faculty feel the same is to have an election. So please consider clicking on this link now (http://www.aaup-ou.org/card.html) and sending in a signed card today.

Respectfully,

Kevin Uhalde
Associate Professor of History
President, OU-AAUP

Faculty Health Care Under Attack

Shifting Cost: Faculty Expected to Foot Climbing Health Care Bills, Not Administrators (The Post)

This Post Editorial noted that the faculty will once again be forced to shoulder financial burdens while the university administration overlooks its own extravagance. According to a new plan for health care benefits, faculty premiums would increase from 9.85 to 12.15 percent. Co-pays would increase from $15 to $20, and co-insurance limits could increase by up to $2,000 per family or $1,000 per individual. Budget Planning Council member Dennis Irwin said, "It's essentially a shift in cost from the university to the faculty."

And to make matters worse, OU recently announced that Holzer Clinic will become an out-of-network health care provider as of July 1. This will force up to 20 percent of Ohio University employees to change physicians or face increased medical costs.

According to the Post editorial, "...the number of top-level administrators continues to increase, and those administrators often receive exorbitant salaries that rise even in the midst of a university-wide slump. The most obvious example? President Roderick McDavis received a controversial $85,000 raise this year. We're left with a bloated administration, bloated executive salaries and individual leaders who seem totally unwilling to make sacrifices for the good of the whole."

THAT SAID, today the university announced that President McDavis will give $50,000 to university scholarship programs. According to a news release, he and his wife will donate $10,000 a year for the next five years to OU's Urban and Appalachian Scholars programs. We should all appreciate this gesture, but we'll also need to put it in perspective. After receiving an $85,000 raise this year, McDavis will still enjoy an extra $75,000 in his wallet each year over the next 5 years. His raise is more than most of us make in an entire year, and it would go a long way in funding our financial crisis.

What is the CIF's Platform?

It's Becoming Clearer What The Independent Faculty Group Wants (Athens NEWS)

This letter to the editor was written by Kevin Mattson, Professor of History.

I have read with interest the materials produced by the Ohio University Committee for an Independent Faculty. Here’s what I’ve learned so far: They don't want a faculty union, they've studied faculty pay at other institutions, and they enjoy printing their statements on lime-green paper.

But here’s what I don't understand: What exactly does the group want? Besides being critical of a union that has not yet established itself, what does the organization stand for?

Well, now I have learned. It didn't come from OU CIF itself; it came from news reports from the Post and The Athens NEWS. Here is the CIF’s de facto platform as I understand it, a logical extension of the idea that no change is for the better:

They are satisfied with a pay freeze for faculty in the same year that the president enjoys a $85,000 pay increase. Even if that seems to defeat some central aims of Vision Ohio about faculty compensation.

They are satisfied with a plan, to quote the Post, that pushes "greater costs onto employees," including faculty. They are satisfied with premiums that would increase from 9.85 percent to 12.15 percent, even though the university has run a surplus in our health care under current plans.

This is the meaning of independence on our campus. And I wish that instead of simply arguing against the formation of a union, that the CIF would start to use these as their talking points on the future course they would like to see faculty chart at OU. It sure is an impressive track record.

Kevin Mattson
Department of History
Ohio University

In contrast to the CIF, the OU-AAUP is committed "to work for the betterment of Ohio University through the protection of Faculty rights and responsibilities, thereby promoting the best possible learning environment for our students and best possible working environment for the faculty."

Interested in learning more about the OU-AAUP's platform? Click here.

Card Drive Slowly Moves Forward

Faculty Union Drive Slowly Moves Forward (Athens NEWS)

The OU-AAUP card drive continues to "chug along," although OU-AAUP President Kevin Uhalde acknowledged that more signatures are needed before calling an election. Uhalde estimated that about 1200 faculty are eligible to sign cards, but that OU-AAUP will not seek an election until they receive cards from about 60% of them. "Uhalde explained that AAUP leaders, before they will seek a vote, want not only to feel that they would have a good shot at winning a union, but also to see evidence that unionization is truly something most faculty want, and that they’re willing to organize around the effort rather than relying on AAUP to do it."

Do you need a union card? If so, you can print one at http://www.ouaaup.org/card.html

Acad. Freedom vs. Corporatization

Faculty Should Reflect on Which Governance Model is Best (The Post)

This provocative letter to the editor was written by Chuck Overby, Professor Emeritus of Engineering. According to Overby, faculty should carefully examine the type of governance model they think is best for Ohio University, because the AAUP and the Committee for an Independent Faculty (CIF) offer significantly different models.

Overby states that "AAUP's model is based on their 1915 founding principle of protecting academic freedom and its intimately related constitutional 'first amendment' right-to-speak. As 'university corporatization' grows across America, the AAUP has found it necessary to build a collective bargaining tool on its solid 'academic freedom' foundation."

According to Overby, the "CIF's model is basically the corporate model with little room for free-speech ideals."

Overby concludes by asking, "Which model, the CIF's or the AAUP's, might be the better model for 'academic governance' at OU...?"

Great question. I'd love to hear your comments.

Safety From Budget Cuts

Faculty Must Seek Unionization For Safety from Budget Cuts (The Post)

This letter to the editor was written by Joseph W. Slade, who is a professor in the School of Media Arts and Studies. According to Slade, the Budget Planning Council plans to recommend (a) "freezing salaries in fiscal 2010, with the exception of employees who are contractually obligated to receive raises;" (b) "postponing a $1.2 million investment in raising faculty salaries as called for in the Vision OHIO plan;" (c) "increas[ing] employee premiums, co-pays and co-insurance levels and add[ing] a deductible;" and (d) excluding Holzer Clinic physicians from "in-network" coverage beginning July 1 because they cost too much.

Slade acknowledges that these are tough times and that there is a need to cut expenses. However, he believes that the administration's proposed cuts reflect problems with their priorities. According to Slade, "OU's administration seems to have decided that the $85,000 raise for the president and the six-figure salaries of a bloated administrative staff should remain off the table. Instead, faculty members are the problem and they should be made to bear the brunt of the cuts. The administration cannot touch unionized employees (janitors, groundskeepers, and maintenance staff represented by AFSCME). These individuals have salary increases (3.5 percent for the coming year) and locked-in benefits guaranteed through the life of their contract. This contract is a multi-year agreement negotiated through collective bargaining. Faculty members, however, are an easy target for cuts in livelihood because they lack the protection of such a negotiated, binding, multi-year contract."

According to Slade, "Budget cuts invariably reflect the priorities of the people who wield the knife. The self-serving goals of OU's administration are crystal clear. But who's looking out for the university and its faculty - the core of the university and the guarantors of its academic mission?"

As you might expect, Slade urges faculty to sign and submit a union card. Slade reminds us that "sending in the card is not a vote for a union, nor is it a commitment to join the AAUP. It is simply a request that the AAUP hold an election to determine if we want to be represented by them."

Message From OU-AAUP

This message was written by Kevin Uhalde, President of OU-AAUP.

Dear Colleagues:

Last summer, a Faculty Senate resolution sparked the first serious talk of collective bargaining on our campus in decades. During the fall that discussion moved from the senate to the campus as a whole. OU-AAUP's role has been to provide information and collect cards in support of an election. Within the last couple weeks, every full-time O.U. faculty member should have received a packet of information, including a card and stamped envelope.

Our primary concern right now is to provide information to all faculty members about how collective bargaining works at universities in Ohio and elsewhere. As more of you volunteer to help carry on these conversations in your own schools and departments, we'll be able to do this the best way possible: face to face, colleague to colleague.

Meanwhile, I want to draw your attention to our website (http://ouaaup.org/), which we've loaded up with a variety of information. Very soon you'll be able to send us your questions directly without revealing your name. You'll even be able to print cards on demand.

The website address is http://ouaaup.org/. As always, we welcome your questions and suggestions. For ideas on how to be involved see http://ouaaup.org/action.html. The best way to show your support is to sign a card, become a member, and start talking with your friends and colleagues. There will only be a faculty union if most of us want one. If you want one, let us know.

Sincerely,

Kevin Uhalde
--
Associate Professor of History
President, OU-AAUP
uhalde@ohio.edu / kevin.uhalde@gmail.com