Excerpt from WDTN
Wright State has asked the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) to declare the ongoing AAUP-WSU strike unauthorized under Ohio law.
The university says they have presented evidence in a detailed filing with SERB that shows the AAUP-WSU is striking for a reason prohibited by law.
The filing states that the strike is unauthorized because its executive committee specifically instructed members in writing to “confound” the university’s efforts to continue operating and providing courses during a strike.
If SERB rules in favor of the filing, the AAUP-WSU would be required to immediately cease and desist all strike activity.
In a release, the university gave three examples of specific evidence they included in the filing:
“The AAUP-WSU's strike is unauthorized because it is striking in significant part over the university removing faculty workload provisions and agreements from the labor contract.”
University officials say they did this because faculty workload is a prohibited subject of bargaining, and that the AAUP-WSU cannot legally maintain a public-sector strike to force the university to negotiate a faculty workload agreement.
“The AAUP-WSU intentionally sabotaged the university’s planning to find replacement instructors and to continue operating and providing courses during a strike.”
The university says the AAUP-WSU executive committee sent an email to all members asking them to tell the school that they did not intend to participate in the strike, regardless of whether or not it was true, effectively sabotaging university efforts to find replacement workers and keep offering courses during the strike.
“The AAUP instructed its members to remove the syllabus and other course information from the Pilot instructional system to make it difficult for the university to offer courses during the strike without disruption.”
This presented a challenge, officials say, because the Pilot system is an electronic portal and database where potential replacement instructions and students would have access to course materials so that the courses could continue throughout the strike.
The university said Thursday that more and more bargaining unit faculty members are asking to be granted access to their university email accounts and online course information in preparation to return to their students and classes.
“Based on confirmed classroom data documented at the department level as well as centrally across both the Dayton and Lake Campuses; 44 percent of AAUP-WSU faculty members are teaching their classes and are not participating in the strike,” officials say, adding, “Wright State is aware that some academic areas are affected more than others and the university is working as quickly as possible to mitigate further disruptions.”
Additionally, the university announced Thursday that they will extend their tuition refund period for full-term classes to February 1 at 5 p.m.
