Education employers in Ohio may soon lose one of their primary excuses for not bargaining with graduate employees and part-time/adjunct faculty in the state--the law does not require them to.

Under legislation promoted by the Ohio Federation of Teachers and introduced in the Legislature in April, the current exclusion of less-than-full-time workers from the collective bargaining law would be lifted. At the same time, the bill would correct another clause in the law that fails to recognize graduate employees as workers who deserve the right to bargain.

At the root of the problem, says the OFT, is a failure to see these educators as professionals, despite the fact that over time they have come to teach a large percentage of the courses offered in Ohio universities and colleges.

This failure plays out in very negative ways for faculty and Ohio residents, as the Legislature seeks more accountability for higher education's performance at the same time it makes cuts to offset state budget deficits. The state recently changed the way it funds higher education, now tying the funding to graduation rates. Yet, budget cuts make it more difficult for institutions to offer students the courses they need to graduate in a timely way, and less money also leads to compromised quality.

"You can't represent full-time faculty effectively unless you get bargaining rights for graduate employees and part-timers," says OFT president Tom Mooney, who also is an AFT vice president. "Increasingly, you are outflanked as colleges and universities use more and more part-timers."

The OFT currently is working to organize graduate teaching and research assistants at Ohio State University. The unit of 2,500 is organizing under the banner of the Graduate Employees and Students Organization/OFT/AFT. On March 27, GESO organizing committee co-leader Clayton Peoples testified before the Ohio House of Representatives Higher Education Subcommittee on the disastrous effect of higher education budget cuts on quality and working conditions for graduate employees.

"Graduate teaching assistants do much of the same work as professors," notes Peoples, a sociology graduate student. "Professors in my department teach, on average, four courses per year as do graduate teaching assistants, but our pay is, in some cases, as low as $900 per month." Graduate employees also have to pay to be covered by the student health plan.

The OFT also is organizing 1,500 adjuncts at the University of Cincinnati who carry a workload that is less than 65 percent. The union is seeking voluntary recognition at UC, but in the long run wants to see a bargaining law passed.

With close to 11,000 unorganized part-timers working in the state's two-year and four-year institutions, getting collective bargaining sanctioned through legislation is the larger goal. [Barbara McKenna / AFT On Campus]

[May 27, 2003]