‘Now Comes the Hard Part’: 20-Day Strike at Wright State Has Ended

Noeleen McIlvenna

Update (2/11/2019, 8:00 p.m.): This article has been updated with news of the governing board’s approval of the contract, and additional reporting.

Unionized faculty members at Wright State University returned to the classroom on Monday, ending a strike that had waylaid operations at the Dayton, Ohio, institution for 20 days.

The Board of Trustees voted on Monday evening to approve a term-sheet agreement, which comprises two consecutive labor contracts that run through June 2023.

The agreement was reached on Sunday evening between the administration and the faculty union, a chapter of the American Association of University Professors that represents about 560 people on the faculty.

The university had said on Thursday that 273 unionized faculty members were not, or were no longer, participating in the strike, though union leaders have previously cast doubt on the university’s strike figures.

It took two lengthy weekend negotiating sessions, accompanied by a federal mediator, to reach the agreement, the university said in a statement.

“Both parties made substantial concessions to help move the university forward together,” Cheryl B. Schrader, the university president, said in a statement. In an email to campus members, Sue Edwards, the provost, thanked students: “I know they have sacrificed these last three weeks and showed great patience in the face of uncertainty.”

In general, the union was able to maintain protections on job security, workload, merit pay, and the right to bargain over health care, said Rudy H. Fichtenbaum, the union’s chief negotiator, who is an emeritus professor of economics and president of the national AAUP.

Union members did have to make some “serious financial concessions,” he said, including agreeing to be placed on the unified health-care plan offered to all Wright State employees.

Under the unified health-care plan, the university has the flexibility to address health-insurance costs, giving it the “short- and long-term financial relief it sought,” the university said in a statement.

As part of the agreement, the bargaining unit’s faculty members won’t receive a raise until the 2021 fiscal year, the statement said. Those faculty members then will get a 2.5-percent salary increase for the final two years of the agreement.

Under the terms, the university will be able to furlough union faculty members for one day per semester as a cost-saving measure —a lower cap than that originally proposed by the administration. Summer pay for unionized faculty members will be cut by 15 to 20 percent. And a retirement-incentive program was put in place.

Two Years of Negotiating

Long before the strike began, labor tensions had been escalating. The union and the university’s top brass had failed to reach a contract agreement for two years.

Meanwhile, Wright State’s finances have been hampered by years of what even President Schrader characterizes as overspending, combined with declining donations and enrollment. The university burned through about $130 million of its reserves in a five-year stretch.

Wright State reduced its spending by around $53 million during the 2018 fiscal year in an attempt to right the ship, the Dayton Daily News reported.

Though the university managed to escape a state-mandated fiscal watch, administrators said, it still needs to shore up its finances. On January 4, trustees voted to carry out what they called their “last, best offer” — which angered the union. Its members had expected negotiations to continue. And faculty members weren’t the ones who caused the financial crisis, the union has said, so they shouldn’t be the ones who pay the price in their contracts.

As the strike wore on, some labor organizations threw their support behind the union. Wright State students held a sit-in. Teachers and professors outside of Ohio signaled their support, as did U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, especially when several administrative decisions provoked a backlash.

The university posted an ad soliciting “long term” adjuncts in more than 80 fields — which the union called a “scare tactic” meant to intimidate strikers. The university also canceled some courses, while others might be converted into shorter terms. Some students have complained on social media about the lack of information about their coursework, and also the lack of oversight in their classrooms.

“The strike is over, but now comes the hard part,” tweeted Daniel Palmer, president of the student body. “We have a campus morale that needs lifted.”

For some students, Monday was the first time they had attended class in nearly three weeks. Dave Shields, a graduate student in the English department, said he and at least a dozen of his peers had decided not to attend classes that were being taught by replacement instructors.

“Our professors are not easily replaced,” Shields said. Graduate students, he said, have specific needs. “We were enrolled in courses that were taught by experts, who had spent, in some cases, decades to develop a syllabus.”

Some graduate students showed solidarity with the union, Shields said, by participating in a roughly 40-hour-long sit-in and by joining the picket line — that is, when they weren’t teaching their own classes. Sometimes the graduate-student-led classes were the only point of “stability” in an undergraduate’s day, he said.

Even as normalcy resumes at Wright State, some confusion lingers. Shields said he found out that his three courses had been canceled, and that he was automatically registered for new, condensed courses that are to begin on March 11. Then, Shields said, he got an email from administration that gave another start date for those courses: February 18. And he also got an email from a faculty member, telling students to return to class the next day. (The university said in a statement that it would resume normal operations on February 18.)

All of these schedule charges are a burden for students with disabilities, like those who rely on home health care, Shields said, as well as for those who work hourly-wage jobs. “The rush to get back in the classroom threatens to overlook some of these folks who have more difficult schedules than I do,” he said.

Crystal B. Lake, an associate professor of English, is also worried about the students. Lake, who is nursing a cough from days of picketing in the cold, said that she has heard students tell their professors that they couldn’t come to class because their boss had rescheduled their hours. Wright State is a destination for lots of nontraditional students, she said. Many have children. Many work part-time or even full-time jobs.

Lake said she spent Monday switching gears from “strike mode” to “how-to-best recover-the-semester” mode. After nearly three weeks out of the classroom and away from her office, she said, she’s figuring out how to give her students the courses they deserve. She’s making her way through the 190 emails that cluttered her inbox this morning. She’s processing her emotions and sorting through the unknowns that remain.

And, Lake said, she needs to return some overdue library books.

Emma Pettit is a staff reporter at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.