Opponents of collective bargaining claim dues are a significant financial burden on faculty and go to support state and national bureaucracies, providing few local benefits. These are misconceptions.
Are dues burdensome?
Dues do represent a cost, but they are an expense we voluntarily accept as part of the necessary investment we must make to build a strong and effective organization capable of having a real impact on university decision-making (shared governance) and securing legally enforceable conditions of employment. As members of the OU-AAUP, we will, in all cases, decide democratically on the amount of dues we wish to contribute to our organization. Nowhere currently in Ohio do AAUP dues exceed 0.75%.
There is, moreover, a way through negotiation to offset the cost to faculty over time. For example, suppose the raise pool with collective bargaining were 1.75% in the first year versus a raise pool without collective bargaining of 1.0%. This increase, if distributed across the board, would pay everyone's AAUP dues. Furthermore, the increment above the original administrative offer becomes part of each person's (and our collective) base salary and thus is carried forward annually in wages and retirement contributions. In other words, just as with compound interest on a savings account, a one-time increment of 0.75% above the non-collective bargaining raise pool compounds with future percentage increases in salaries and therefore covers AAUP dues in future years.
But why pay dues in the first place?
The short answer is that we need resources to create and sustain an organization with the power to protect faculty rights and win real concessions in salary and benefits. Dues enable our O.U. chapter of AAUP to consult legal experts when negotiating on your behalf.
Dues also support the work of the state and national AAUP Although these sister organizations rely mostly on the volunteer labor of academic professionals like ourselves, they also employ legal and legislative specialists to advocate for academic freedom in the State of Ohio's General Assembly and in the United States Congress. For example, the state and national AAUP fought the Academic Bill of Rights legislation in Ohio and dozens of states around the country. Had that legislation passed, the Ohio Assembly could have interfered in how we teach our courses. The national AAUP has also fought, through the courts and elsewhere, to protect the free exchange of ideas by contesting the denials of visas to foreign scholars seeking to attend conferences or to teach in the U.S. These are just a few of the many ways the AAUP defends faculty rights. Visit the state and national AAUP websites for more information about the work of these organizations on behalf of local chapters and our profession generally: http://www.ocaaup.org/ and http://www.aaup.org/aaup. Remember, too, that the AAUP's policies and standards define the profession throughout American academe. In fact, we have incorporated these policies and standards into our Faculty Handbook here at O.U.
What if you choose not to join AAUP?
All faculty included in the bargaining unit receive the benefits of the contract. This is true even if individual members of the bargaining unit choose not to join the AAUP and thereby voluntarily forfeit their voting rights. Non-members are sometimes required to pay an agency fee to defray the cost of negotiating the contract from which they also benefit. If our AAUP bargaining unit were to win the right to levy an agency fee, we would be asking non-members to cover their share of the costs of negotiating the contract. Agency fees typically are slightly less if not fully equivalent to the cost of full AAUP membership.
The real questions to ask yourself
When it comes to dues, ask yourself these questions: What value do you place on having negotiable and enforceable terms and conditions of employment? What value do you place on having faculty influence on university decision-making? What value do you place on faculty having real legal and organizational resources to exercise their professional expertise and authority? How well are we faring under the status quo? Collective bargaining can empower us as a faculty. But it requires us to invest our time and some of our money to make it work. How much is a strong and successful faculty voice in governance, salaries, and benefits worth to you?
Contact OU-AAUP President Kevin Uhalde (uhalde@ohio.edu / kevin.uhalde@gmail.com) for more details about collective bargaining and the OU-AAUP card drive. To become an AAUP member, go to www.aaup.org.
