So-Called “Right-to-Work” Bills to 
Receive First Hearing This Week

As we reported to you in May, State Representatives Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) and Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) each introduced so-called “right-to-work” bills.  Roegner’s bill (House Bill 151) deals with the private sector, while Maag’s bill (House Bill 152) deals with the public sector. 

There was also a third bill introduced jointly by Roegner and Maag (House Joint Resolution 5) that would put the issue on the state ballot for Ohio voters to decide.

While GOP leaders largely have been dismissive of the bills, saying that so-called “right-to-work” is not part of their agenda, Rep. Roegner has pushed for her legislation to receive its statutorily mandated first hearing in the Ohio House.   HB 151 and HJR 5 will receive their first hearings in the Manufacturing and Workforce Development Committee on Tuesday, June 4 at 1:30pm.  While the committee may not push these bills beyond the obligatory first hearing at this time, it is important that the committee chairman, Rep. Kirk Schuring (R-Canton), hears that Ohio workers do not want these bills to move forward.  

E-mail Rep. Schuring by clicking here.

Below is a sample letter you can send to Rep. Schuring:

Dear Rep. Schuring,

I hope that it is not your intention, as Chairman of the Manufacturing and Workforce Development Committee, to move HB 151 and HJR 5 beyond their statutorily required first hearings. 

These so-called “right-to-work” bills are highly politically charged and motivated, and the last thing Ohio needs right now is another divisive fight.

I hope that the Manufacturing and Workforce Development Committee will focus on legislation that actually will help improve Ohio’s economic outlook.

Sincerely,

[Your Name] 

Cleveland State University Law Faculty  Vote in Favor of Unionization  On May 20, the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) held the final vote tally on the Cleveland State University (CSU) law faculty’s unionization effort.  The vote revealed that 55 percent of the faculty voted in favor of forming an AAUP union.  Congratulations to the CSU law faculty; and thank you to our existing CSU-AAUP chapter for their support of the law faculty throughout this process!

State Budget Update  House Bill 59, the state budget bill, is currently in the Ohio Senate Finance Committee.  Last week, the Senate Finance Committee released an amended version of the bill.  Notably, the faculty workload provision remained out of the bill.   Additionally, the provision that would have required universities to charge in-state tuition to out-of-state students who they provide voting identification to was removed.  The full Senate is expected to vote on the budget this week.  Once the Senate passes the bill, it will go to Conference Committee for the House and Senate to resolve their differences.

GOP Leaders Don’t Want 
“Right-to-Work” Right Now

As we reported to you on May 1, State Representatives Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) and Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) each introduced so-called “right-to-work” bills.  Roegner’s bill (House Bill 151) deals with the private sector, while Maag’s bill (House Bill 152) deals with the public sector. 

There was also a third bill introduced (House Joint Resolution 5) that would put the issue on the state ballot for Ohio voters to decide.

However, after meeting with House Speaker Bill Batchelder (R-Medina) and Gov. Kasich, Ohio Senate President Keith Faber (R-Celina) issued the following statement:  “We have an ambitious agenda focused on job creation and economic recovery, and Right to Work legislation is not on that list. After discussions with other leaders and my caucus, I don’t believe there is current support for this issue in the General Assembly.”As the Cleveland Plain Dealer appropriately pointed out in their May 3 editorial:  “Such legislation is…a grotesque distraction from Ohio’s real problems. Ostensibly, right-to-work laws forbid requiring someone to join a union as a condition of his or her employment. In fact, they are aimed at undercutting the political power of organized labor, while leaving in place the political power of organized business.”  While we can breathe a brief sigh of relief that these bills will not be ramrodded through like Senate Bill 5 was, we must also keep in mind that GOP leaders in Indiana and Michigan made similar remarks before eventually passing “right-to-work” laws.  Additionally, there is still a Tea Party coalition that continues to gather signatures to put the issue on the ballot themselves.  One of the leaders of that group recently reported that they have around 100,000 signatures to date.  They need approximately 386,000 valid signatures to achieve ballot placement.  There are two things that Ohio AAUP members can do to help fight back against “right-to-work:”  1) Contact your State Representative to tell them you oppose HB 151, HB 152, and HJR 5 (find your legislators here); and  2) Spread the word to your colleagues, friends, family, and neighbors that so-called “right-to-work” is wrong for Ohio.  For more information about so-called “right-to-work” and its harmful effects on the middle class, visit the toolkit on our website.

The Crafty Way to Disenfranchise Thousands of Ohio College Students  By: Martin Kich, President, Wright State University-AAUP Right before the Ohio House of Representatives passed House Bill 59, the state budget bill, they slipped in a little-noticed provision that could have the effect of disenfranchising thousands of college students.   Currently in Ohio, college students can provide a letter from their school to establish that they have residency and are eligible to vote, and schools have readily provided such letters in an effort to encourage voter participation among their students.  But this late amendment to the budget bill stipulates that if a school now provides an out-of-state student with such a letter, the school must then charge that student the in-state tuition rate. The in-state tuition rate is currently $15,500 less than the out-of-state rate at Ohio State.  In other words, universities will no longer provide such identification to their students if it means losing out on the extra tuition dollars, which will result in disenfranchising those students from voting in Ohio.  Out-of-state students will have to provide other proof of residence (many of the options are less readily available to dorm students, who do not individually pay utility bills or may not have Ohio drivers licenses) or vote by absentee ballots in their home states. GOP lawmakers have protested that these are simply “common sense” tweaks to existing laws. But this “tweak” is hypocritical.  As state support for the public colleges and universities has dropped to about 20 percent of the cost to educate in-state students, those institutions have increasingly engaged in very aggressive recruiting of out-of-state students. Not only are those students paying higher tuitions that have allowed the lower in-state tuitions to be sustained, but they are also contributing significantly to the state’s overall economy.  For the 2012-2013 academic year, there are more than 32,000 out-of-state students at Ohio’s public universities the great majority of whom are concentrated in the state’s largest cities, which are the most Democratic parts of the state. And if 32,000 votes seems insignificant in a state with a population of more than 11,000,000, bear in mind that President Obama carried Ohio by just 166,272 votes; and the affected college students represent about 20 percent of that margin. Finally, if this sort of political calculation seems beneath any serious policymaker, just take a close look at the gerrymandered districts that resulted from the 2010 redistricting.  Those districts were cut in ways that sometimes split not just neighborhoods but, in some instances, city blocks.  If you are interested in how many out-of-state students attend each of Ohio’s public universities, visit: http://academeblog.org/2013/04/28/suppress-the-vote-2013-2014-versions-on-campus/#more-2888.

The Bad News: So-Called “Right-to-Work” Legislation Has Been Introduced in the Ohio House

They are at it again.  Despite the fact that 62 percent of Ohioans rejected the Senate Bill 5 attack on public workers nearly a year and a half ago, the extreme right-wing politicians in Columbus want to pursue similar attacks.  Earlier today, State Representatives Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) and Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) each introduced so-called “right-to-work” bills.  Roegner’s bill deals with the private sector, while Maag’s bill deals with the public sector. There was also a third bill introduced that would put the issue on the state ballot for Ohio voters to decide.  The bills are being called “Ohio Workplace Freedom” legislation, but the name could not be more misleading.  This is yet another attempt by corporate interests – many of the same ones who backed Senate Bill 5 – to end unions as we know them so that they can tip the balance in their favor at the expense of the middle class.  The corporate interests want to fool us by calling it “workplace freedom,” because what it really means is less freedom for workers.   These types of laws have already proven to have harmful effects on all citizens in the states where they have been implemented: lower wages, fewer benefits, higher poverty rates, and more workplace fatalities.  We do not yet know if House Republican leadership intends on moving these bills forward.  House Speaker Bill Batchelder (R-Medina) has been evasive on the subject.  However, it is widely believed that Gov. Kasich did not want to pursue such legislation ahead of his re-election campaign. As always, we will continue to update our members as new information becomes available.  For more information about so-called “right-to-work,” visit the toolkit on our website   The Good News: AAUP Continues to Build Strength in Ohio There are two success stories to report out of northwest Ohio: BGSU-FAOn April 12, the Bowling Green State University Faculty Association (BGSU-FA), a chapter of the AAUP, announced that 97 percent of its membership ratified their first contract. This is no small accomplishment, as the first organizing card was signed over four years ago, and the chapter spent about two and a half years in contract negotiations – largely the result of the administration stalling during the Senate Bill 5 battle.  It is expected that the BGSU Board of Trustees will ratify the contract at their May 3 meeting. Congratulations, BGSU-FA!   UT Nursing Faculty On April 23, the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) held a vote tally, which revealed that 70 percent of the nursing faculty at the University of Toledo voted in favor of collective bargaining. This vote means that about 34 nursing faculty will be joining the existing UT-AAUP chapter.  Our congratulations to the nursing faculty and our UT chapter for their hard work in accomplishing this goal!

Sincerely, Ohio Conference AAUP Communications Committee

Notice to Members about Business Portion of OCAAUP Annual Meeting

The OCAAUP Annual Meeting will take place Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13 at the Columbus Renaissance Downtown, just steps away from the Statehouse in the heart of downtown Columbus.  In accordance with OCAAUP’s Code of Regulations, members must be informed of any proposed changes to the Code of Regulations at least five weeks prior to the Annual Meeting. At the Annual Meeting, there will be a vote to modify the current 501(c)(3) entity’s Code of Regulations to include a section on how that entity would be dissolved. In addition, there will be a vote to approve a new Code of Regulations that will govern OCAAUP’s new 501(c)(6) entity.  For more details about these proposed changes, and to access the registration form and agenda, click here.  Please see the article below for more information about the changes to OCAAUP’s tax status.   Information about OCAAUP’s Shift to New Tax Status For many years, there has been an on-going discussion within the Ohio Conference AAUP Board of Trustees about changing our tax status. For many years, the Ohio Conference has been a 501(c)(3) organization under the definitions of the IRS Code. As a “Charitable” organization, the ability of the Ohio Conference to participate in lobbying has been very limited. The IRS Code severely restricts “political” expenditures by 501(c)(3) organizations in exchange for the tax benefits enjoyed by those organizations. The limitations include the value of the work time spent by organization employees, such as our Executive Director on lobbying activities. With our involvement in 2011 with State Issue 2, the repeal of SB 5, and the increasing number of state issues that have bearing on the quality of higher education in Ohio and on the rights and responsibilities of our members, it became apparent to the Conference Board that we needed to move to a less restrictive tax status. The agenda of the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Ohio Conference included discussion of how we can become more engaged in issue-based activism, and a motion was passed that authorized the Trustees to explore and to move towards changing our tax status. Subsequently, the Trustees decided that a 501(c)(6) designation (non-profit business league) preserves our tax-exempt status at the same time that it allows us to increase our expenditures on influencing the outcome of non-partisan “political” issues through such activities as lobbying. The down side of such a move is that contributions to the Conference by individuals would no longer be tax-deductible for those individuals. The upside is that we can be much more effective in pushing for those things that are at the core of our beliefs as an organization. Upon deciding to move towards a 501(c)(6) status, the Trustees directed the Conference President, Treasurer, and Executive Director to initiate the steps needed to become a 501(c)(6) organization. We have now completed the required paperwork and filed the required papers with the IRS and with the State of Ohio. We have tax ID numbers for the “new” organization. We have opened separate bank accounts for the “new” organization, although our 501(c)(3) organization will continue in existence at least until its current funds are spent down. The last official action that we need is adoption of a Code of Regulations (Constitution/Bylaws) for the new 501(c)(6) entity. To that end, the Trustees appointed a committee (President John McNay, Government Relations Committee Chair Dave Patton, Treasurer Dave Rubin, and Executive Director Sara Kilpatrick) to draft a proposed Code. The draft was approved by the Trustees at its January 26, 2013 meeting. The vote to formally adopt the Code will occur at the 2013 Annual Conference Meeting to be held on April 13th. To view the proposed Code, and other information pertaining to this year’s Annual Meeting, click here. Dave Rubin, Treasurer

Sincerely, Ohio Conference AAUP Communications Committee

Full-Time Faculty Workload Provision Removed from State Budget Bill

On Tuesday, the Ohio House of Representatives released Substitute House Bill 59 – the revised state budget bill. The provision in the original bill that would have required universities to increase workload for full-time faculty by one additional course from the previous academic year, if the university revised or created a workload policy, was removed from the bill. Taking its place is the following, innocuous language: The boards of trustees of state institutions of higher education shall ensure that faculty members devote a proper and judicious part of their work week to the actual instruction of students. Total class credit hours of production per academic term per full-time faculty member is expected to meet the standards set forth in the budget data submitted by the Chancellor of the Board of Regents. The Ohio Conference AAUP will continue to monitor the budget bill to ensure that this provision is not reinstated in the Ohio Senate.  Thank you to our members who took the time to contact Representatives on the Higher Education Subcommittee to lobby them on this issue. In addition, we must recognize Ohio Conference AAUP President John McNay for his testimony to the subcommittee, as well as his letter to the editor that appeared in last Saturday’s Columbus Dispatch.

April 19: Deadline to Reserve Hotel Rooms  for Campaign for the Future of  Higher Education Meeting  Next Friday, April 19 is the deadline to reserve hotel rooms to attend the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE) meeting in Columbus, Ohio. The meeting will be held from 6pm on Friday, May 17 through 12pm on Sunday, May 19 at the Columbus Airport Marriott.   You can visit the Columbus Airport Marriott website and use Group Code CFECFEA to make a reservation.  You also can call the hotel at 800-491-5717 or 614-475-7551 and tell them you are with the CFHE meeting.   Rooms have been discounted at a rate of $119/night. There is free parking at the hotel. *Please do not wait to make your reservation, as the hotel is going to be sold out that weekend.* At this meeting, attendees will be discussing ways to:Foster community engagement and support for public higher educationProvide alternatives to the “new normal” of inadequate funding for higher educationDevelop effective strategies for improving funding for higher educationIdentify online education principles that provide meaningful access to quality higher educationRegistration fee for the conference is $50.  Checks should be made payable to “Ohio Conference AAUP” and mailed to Ohio Conference AAUP, 137 East State Street, Columbus, OH 43215.  The meeting registration deadline is May 1.  To register, please send an email with the subject “CFHE May Meeting Registration” to sara@ocaaup.org with the following information:Full name;email address;dates you plan to attend, and;organizational affiliation.We hope to see you in Columbus for another great CFHE meeting!