OCAAUP Produces Higher Ed Report

The Ohio Conference AAUP has produced an “Ohio Higher Education Report” entitled The Real Problems Deserve Real Solutions.

The purpose of the report is to influence public policy around higher education issues, especially in light of HB 64, the state budget bill, as well as Gov. Kasich’s Task Force on Affordability and Efficiency.
It is also a response to “solutions” that have been proposed in recent years, such as faculty workload mandates, which fail to address the real problems and cost drivers at our public colleges and universities.

Certainly, this report does not cover every issue that is worthy of attention and discussion; but we included the problems we believe to be the most pressing, including the decline of state funding, administrative bloat, and athletic spending.

The full report can be found by clicking here.

Guest Column by Marty Kich: “Right-to-Work” Provides Workers With Many “Rights”

“Right to work” provides workers who voted against a union with a means to undermine the democratic process.

“Right to work” provides workers with the right to benefit from unions to which they do not pay any dues.

“Right to work” provides workers in a unionized workplace with the right to receive the same negotiated wage increases and benefits as their colleagues who are paying union dues.

“Right to work” provides workers in a unionized workplace with the right to receive the same protections, grievance rights, and union representation as their colleagues who are paying union dues.

“Right to work” provides workers in a unionized workplace with the right to sue the union for inadequate representation even if they have refused to pay dues to that union.

“Right to work” provides individual workers with the right to undermine the union that is required to represent them.

When the union becomes unsustainable, “right to work” then provides every worker with the right to bargain individually with management in a manner that is not legally binding in any way.

“Right to work” then provides every worker with the right to accept whatever reductions in salary and benefits that the company management deems necessary and whenever they deem them necessary.

“Right to work” then provides every worker with the right to work without any standard breaks, including a truncated or eliminated lunch break.

“Right to work” then provides every worker with the right to work more than forty hours per week for standard, rather than overtime, wages-and sometimes for no additional wages whatsoever.

“Right to work” then provides every worker with the right to work without paid sick time and without paid vacation.

“Right to work” then provides every worker with the right to endure oppressive working conditions without complaint.

“Right to work” then provides every worker with the right to risk injury in an unsafe workplace without complaint.

“Right to work” then provides every worker who is injured on the job with the right to file a personal lawsuit against the company if that worker has sufficient savings to pay a lawyer for however many years it will take for the case to come to trial.

“Right to work” then provides every worker with the right to complain to management or to other workers about anything that concerns them and then to be terminated for creating dissension in the workplace.

“Right to work” then provides every worker who is unjustly terminated from a job with the right to file a personal lawsuit against the company if that worker has sufficient savings to pay a lawyer for however many years it will take for the case to come to trial.

“Right to work” then provides every disabled worker with the right to apply for workers’ compensation benefits, which are much more minimal and difficult to get in “right to work” states than in pro-labor states.

“Right to work” then provides every worker with the right to be denied employment for all sorts of discriminatory reasons-some of which are illegal, others of which remain legal, all of which are unethical, and most of which are difficult to prove and almost impossible for the average worker seeking employment to litigate.

“Right to work” provides every worker with the right to allow corporations to dominate the electoral process and thereby influence what is written into law.

“Right to work” provides every worker with the right to petition his or her elected representatives for redress, with the knowledge that those elected officials have received unlimited contributions from the very corporations from which the worker is seeking redress.

Nonetheless, “right to work” does provide every worker with the right to leave a poorly paid, unsatisfying, and dangerous position and to seek employment with another company that is under no legal requirement to treat its workers any better.

Note: Currently, there is no “right-to-work” legislation in the new Ohio General Assembly session. There is a continued effort, albeit a weak one, to gather signatures to place “right-to-work” on the state ballot. Gov. Kasich has said it’s not on his agenda.