Recording of information session on faculty petition for representation now available

The following message was shared with Ohio University faculty members on Dec. 12, 2024.

On Tuesday evening, Executive Vice President and Provost Don Leo and Senior Associate General Counsel and Director of Employee and Labor Relations Mike Courtney presented updates and answered questions about the United Academics of Ohio University (UAOU)’s petition to be recognized as a collective bargaining unit on behalf of faculty. The session was a voluntary event open to all faculty.

In our Thursday, December 5 email announcement of the meeting, the University invited questions from faculty in advance, and multiple faculty members requested that we share a recording of the event for later viewing. To honor that request, the full recording has now been posted on our informational website: ohio.edu/uaou.

During the meeting, Ohio University leadership provided information in response to some of the questions we have received over the last few weeks, including:

• An overview of the confidential voting process, highlighting the plan for ballots to be mailed to homes of eligible members February 12. Courtney also shared that the outcome will be determined based on the majority of votes cast regardless of voter participation. For example, if only 100 faculty vote, a winning outcome will only need 51 votes.
• Details on the tentatively agreed upon Bargaining Unit, including the types of faculty included and the faculty that would be excluded.
• Types of issues subject to collective bargaining, as well as issues prohibited from bargaining such as faculty workload, which is prohibited by law based on Ohio Revised Code.

Ohio University will continue to update the online FAQ over the coming weeks. Faculty who have questions they would like to see addressed in the FAQ may email news@ohio.edu with the subject line “Unionization Question.”