AAUP-OSU Supports the Faculty Alliance of Miami (FAM)
- AAUP OSU
- Dec 9, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 10
To President Crawford, Provost Mullenix, and Board of Trustees of Miami University
We are writing from the Ohio State chapter of the AAUP to question Miami University’s decision to obstruct Miami faculty’s right to vote on whether or not they want to form a union, and to join the proposed bargaining unit of the Faculty Alliance of Miami (FAM).
Workers have a right to unionize, and this means the right to determine what constitutes a bargaining unit. Your effort to exclude Teaching, Clinical Professors and Lecturers (TCPL), Visiting Assistant Professors, Librarians, Instructors, and research/teaching staff from FAM’s proposed bargaining unit, claiming that the groups do not share with tenure-line faculty a “community of interest” as educators, is a matter for the faculty to determine, not administration.
As faculty at OSU, we know for a fact that the work we do—teaching, research, service—is shared across faculty categories, including librarians.
You claim that these faculty don’t share a community, but in fact that fragmentation is the purpose of your obstruction. In every industry, dividing and conquering workers is the strategy of employers. In the case of FAM, this rhetoric aims to demoralize the faculty and delay the vote.
We ask that as people who believe in education and in the mission of universities as a public good, you diverge from this long tradition of bosses who only value the bottom line. The work of educators in all categories at Miami is valuable and necessary. All faculty, and all workers, deserve to work in conditions that respect their dignity and democratic rights. All faculty, and all workers, have a right to organize for fairer pay and equitable treatment.
We stand with FAM and request that you allow Miami faculty to vote freely to determine, on their own, whether or not they share a community of interests.
Sincerely,
The Executive Board of the Ohio State chapter of the AAUP
