January 27 Update

We began negotiating 177 days ago and today was a disappointing return to the table as negotiations have dragged into 2026. We’ve had to wait six weeks since our last bargaining session due to the holidays and the Administration team’s vacation schedules.

 Despite having six weeks since our last session, the Administration brought nothing new to the table (i.e., no counterproposals or new proposals). Instead, we discussed their previous counterproposals on our Dues Deduction and Nondiscrimination articles and came to a tentative agreement on the Separability article.

We also briefly reviewed the 25 proposals that UAOU has brought forth, including three previous tentative agreements with Administration.

As of January 28, it has been 91 days without a response from Administration regarding our Salary and Compensation and Benefits articles. As we reiterated to the Administration (i.e., multiple negotiating team members first told them in October), we believe that we have all economic proposals on the table. Today when asked, the Administration indicated they wouldn’t be prepared to respond to these proposals even by the next bargaining date, February 11.

 All bargaining unit faculty members at OU should demand that the Administration take seriously their responsibility to come to the table with new counterproposals to our proposed articles, as these are important and consequential issues that impact Ohio University faculty.

 Note: This bargaining session was held online due to inclement weather. It was originally scheduled as a “full day meeting” (i.e., 10:30-5:00). However, we ended up adjourning at 2:15 as the Administration brought no new counter proposals to discuss. and we needed to further review the 2 counters we have.

Our next scheduled negotiating date is February 11 from 10:30-5 pm at Baker Center. We agreed to two more negotiating dates: February 25 and March 18.

For more specific information regarding the proposals and tentative agreements, please see the proposal tracker at https://www.uaou.org/ bargaining-tracker