Kent State Faculty Senate Opposes Collective Bargaining For Part-time Faculty

The Kent State University Faculty Senate voted against supporting bills that would allow part-time faculty, including graduate and teaching assistants, the right to collective bargaining Monday.

The bills currently before the Ohio legislature would remove the legal barriers that prohibit these groups of professors from coming together to bargain as one group with the university on issues such as higher wages and health benefits.

KSU Provost Robert Frank opposed the idea of the senate supporting the bill because of financial and political reasons.

“The estimates are that the state is $6.5 billion to $8 billion in debt and the university has very limited opportunities to have flexibility in our budget,” Frank said. “It would put us in an untenable position right now if we had a third bargaining body to deal with.”

Frank also said that given the recent political shift, he didn’t think it would be a good idea to be seen in support of an issue he believes the new government will oppose. “It makes a statement about Kent State that we don’t need at a time when we are about to under go budget cuts,” Frank said.
KSU English professor John Stoker said he felt the issue was important to support, if only symbolically.

“To me, that’s a basic human right to organize collectively,” Stoker said.

But psychology professor David Riccio said that while he supports the idea of extending collective bargaining to part-time faculty members, he “would have serious concerns about a graduate assistant having collective bargaining.”

Several members of Faculty Senate echoed his opinion.

In contrast, philosophy professor Deborah Smith said she was a graduate assistant at a university that extended collective bargaining to their assistants.

“I was able to get health care, which I wouldn’t have had without it,” Smith said.

Four members of the faculty senate abstained from the vote.

Pamela Grimm, chair of the marketing department, said she supports the idea in principle, but as a department chair she recognizes the financial impact of such a bill to her bottom line.

Given the new political makeup of Ohio, sociology professor Jarrod Tudor said he “doubt(s) very seriously that this legislation will go forward.”