Excerpt from WKEF/WRGT
The longest-ever strike of higher education faculty in Ohio continued on Monday as members of the union representing some Wright State University faculty were pack on the picket lines.
On Sunday, the Board of Trustees approved the now proposed contract terms, and urged the faculty union to vote on the new contract they had approved. According to the release from Wright State University, the proposal was drafted after the university said they listened to the faculty and tried to compromise when they could.
The union responded to the decision at the start of the third week of the strike, saying, "We offered the WSU administration/Board $8 million in concessions; they turned down that offer and would not change a word of their proposal on Saturday evening. Then on Sunday, they voted to approve their own proposal, a student designed to convince people that we should then ask our members to vote on it. But our chapter Constitution defines procedures; members only vote when the two sides have reached 'tentative agreement'. If the AAUP tried to interfere with Board procedures, they would be rushing to file complaints with the State Employment Relations Board — and rightly so."
Elyse Angle, who is with Students for Faculty at WSU, said she was at the meeting and that university officials should have realized that the union wasn't going to accept the terms.
"What I saw was a facade," she said. "It was a public act that looked official to try to perpetuate this narrative, but it had no substance behind it."
Angle has five classes this semester at the university and only one of them is currently meeting, but she's standing behind the faculty.
"If you're paying attention and hearing the statements they make and comparing it to the actions that they actually do," she said about university officials, "you can tell that they don't have students first."
So far, it's not clear when negotiations could resume between the two.
