Report From The Table Team: October 21 Negotiations
Today we secured a major tentative agreement on one of our highest priorities: job security for Instructional Faculty. After a rough start, we reached agreement on Appointments and Renewals, winning concrete protections that give faculty greater stability and more time to plan their futures:
Automatic three-year contracts for Instructional Faculty promoted to Associate Professor of Instruction.
Protection for longer contracts: Instructional Faculty who already hold longer contracts will retain that contract length upon renewal.
At least nine months’ notice of nonrenewal for longer-term faculty, giving them critical time to prepare and pursue other opportunities. As most 9-month contracts end in mid-May, this effectively means nonrenewed faculty would have to be notified by mid-August if contracts will not be renewed for the next academic year.
These protections are a major union win. Faculty organized for greater job security, and together we have won a tentative agreement that makes it a contractual commitment. In other words, Ohio University Administration will be legally required to guarantee these protections. Read the full agreement here.
The administration is still holding up progress on the Salary and Compensation Proposal. They have had our latest counterproposal since September 23. They came to today’s session without a response. With only a handful of articles left, their failure to counter on pay is a major obstacle to finishing this contract. We directly challenged the administration’s continued failure to counter on Compensation. The discussion was frank and at times contentious. We made clear that the administration must put a compensation counterproposal on the table before we consider further movement on our financial proposals, especially Health Benefits. We deserve a meaningful compensation offer—and a fair contract now. University leadership needs to give its bargaining team the authority to deliver one.
We also reached tentative agreements on two additional articles: 1. Education Benefits and 2. Faculty Rank and Classification. The Education Benefits article secures contractual access to educational benefits for faculty and eligible dependents, requires equal treatment with non-union employees, and ensures written notice to the Union of benefit changes. It also protects continued benefits for students already admitted or enrolled when a faculty member faces retrenchment or qualifying nonrenewal, with coverage lasting up to three continuous calendar years for undergraduate study or one year for graduate study, subject to the article’s limits. Finally, we tentatively agreed to a Faculty Rank and Classification article that was similar to our initial proposal in that it provided definitions for each of the faculty designations.
The administration refused to negotiate a contract article on accommodations, maintaining that they are not required to bargain on this subject because existing law and university policy already address these issues. We know from UAOU members that the Administration approach to accommodations is insufficient, and we have continued pushing for a formal commitment. On Wednesday, we reached an agreement on a Side Letter on Accommodations, a memorandum of understanding that establishes a formal channel to raise faculty accommodation concerns in Labor Relations meetings. As part of this agreement, we withdrew our original accommodations proposal, submitted in November 2025.
Full-text versions of all articles referenced above can be viewed at our bargaining tracker: https://www.uaou.org/bargaining-tracker
On Wednesday, our team also offered the administration 22 bargaining dates in November and December to get this contract finished. In an established pattern, the Administration could not engage in the simple task of checking calendars and scheduling meetings for the upcoming month, and instead offered one half day in November. Our next session is Wednesday, October 28, from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. UAOU is making the time to reach a fair agreement. The administration needs to match that commitment.
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Your pressure is moving the administration at the bargaining table. Now we need to turn it up. The coming weeks are critical, and winning a strong first contract will take every one of us stepping up. Show up for actions. Bring your colleagues. Demand that university leadership settle a fair contract now. We cannot let up. What we do together in the coming weeks will shape what we win in this contract.
Our next scheduled bargaining date is October 28 from 10:30pm-5pm at Baker Center. This is the same day that President Gonzales will be giving a “University Update” in Baker Theater at 1:00pm. We need to have a huge and vocal presence at that event. RSVP today at https://www.uaou.org/university-updates-rsvp
