UPDATE | Faculty union prepares for strike; YSU, Ace union reach agreement

YOUNGSTOWN — While Youngstown State University administration and the union representing faculty did not reach an agreement at their final planned negotiation session, the university and its classified staff union reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract late Friday night.

The tentative agreement with the YSU Association for Classified Employees will now go before the ACE membership and the YSU Board of Trustees for formal ratification. The pact calls for essentially the same economic terms presented and rejected today to the faculty union, which has filed a notice to strike starting Monday.

In a release Friday night, YSU Provost Brien Smith called on the YSU-OEA faculty union to withdraw its strike notice.

"For the sake of our students and the community, who have persevered under difficult and unprecedented circumstances this year, we need to come to a resolution that is within the university's financial means and without a work stoppage," he said.

According to a release from the union, it demands four things to end the 10-month-long contract dispute: The right of faculty to have a say in their departments, programs and classes; protections for its most vulnerable faculty; maintenance of protections for faculty scholarship; and cost of living salary adjustments across the next three years and maintenance of the current health benefits plan.

"Administration's proposal made some small moves forward from original positions but nearly all of them were outside of YSU-OEA's major must-haves and continued to ignore fact-finder recommendations," the union wrote in a release Friday night.

Today's negotiation session was the final session planned before the union intends to strike Monday. The union opened a strike vote to members Thursday. It closes Saturday at 5 p.m.

If the strike is approved and an agreement is not reached, a strike will begin Monday, the first day of fall break at YSU.

In a message to students Friday night about the potential strike, the administration wrote, "The university plans to remain open during the strike. Youngstown State will operate under normal hours of operation and class schedule."

Faculty not represented by YSU-OEA will be expected to continue to come to work as scheduled.

This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 10:26 PM with the headline "UPDATE | Faculty union prepares for strike; YSU, Ace union reach agreement."