AAUP-UC Chapter Files Unfair Labor Practice Charge Against UC Administration
May 21, 2025
On May 21st, the AAUP-UC Chapter filed Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges against the University of Cincinnati Administration for its failure to bargain in good faith and its interference with, restraint, or coercion of UC Faculty in the exercise of their rights guaranteed under current Ohio law. The ULP charges were filed with the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) by attorneys from the law firm Herzfeld, Suetholz, Gastel, Leniski and Wall.
The duration and outcome of the Unfair Labor Practice process is up to SERB, and could take some time, but in the meantime AAUP-UC will continue to bargain in good faith with the Administration to protect the rights of faculty under the contract. This action also provides a platform for other actions that the Chapter leaders and members will discuss in the coming weeks.
Our hand was forced to file the ULP when, on April 18th, University of Cincinnati Leadership directed the Administration’s bargaining team to revoke its agreement with the AAUP-UC—in place since the first bargaining session on February 26th—to work expeditiously to reach a successor Agreement that would be in place prior to the June 26th effective date of Ohio Senate Bill 1 (SB1).
As Chapter members are probably aware, SB1 is the far-reaching legislation that subjects Ohio’s public colleges and universities to legislative micro-management, contains more than 100 unfunded administrative mandates, content bans, restrictions on collective bargaining rights, eliminates the long-standing right to strike, and targets already marginalized populations on campuses. In rushing through SB1, the Republican majority—including Governor DeWine—ignored the will of the people and pushed through a bill that is intended to undermine Ohio’s public system of higher education. This bill will destabilize our colleges and universities, drive away top talent, and ultimately hurt Ohio’s economic future.
The agreement on expedited negotiations between UC and the AAUP was beneficial for both parties, as it would: keep in place existing policies and procedures for a vast majority of UC’s faculty; protect several rights that SB1 strips away; maintain stable labor relations between UC and the AAUP, which have steadily improved over the past decade; and stem a possible exodus of UC’s highly-qualified faculty to other states where tenure and academic freedom are not under assault.
University Leadership has since tried its hand at revisionist history, claiming there was a miscommunication with the AAUP-UC about the point at which it would continue to negotiate the impacts of SB1. But the reality on the ground at the bargaining table belies such revisionism. Topics impacted by SB1 continued to be negotiated well after SB1 passed the Senate, then the House, and was signed by Governor DeWine. The much more logical and likely reason behind University Leadership’s betrayal of UC faculty occurred just one night before, on April 17th, when Senator Cirino (the architect behind SB1) threatened to pull funding from Ohio public universities that didn’t preemptively comply with SB1.
Make no mistake. Blame ultimately lies with a University Leadership that has, at every turn, shown its willingness to sacrifice student rights and safety, faculty rights, tenure, academic freedom, free speech, and association rights in an attempt to appease politicians at the State and Federal levels. Whether that is SB1, the so-called “Dear Colleague” letter from the Trump Administration targeting DEI, putting students at risk through thoughtless bathroom signage, or ICE targeting international students with a campaign of fear and intimidation by abducting students off the streets or on campuses, University Leadership has acquiesced well before they were legally obligated to. Its misguided belief that remaining “neutral” on SB1 and other State and Federal attacks on higher education would appease the powers that be enough to protect their state funding will, once again, prove futile at the expense of the moral and ethical foundations of public higher education. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu so eloquently expressed, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
That is why the AAUP-UC Chapter must take steps to vigorously and loudly object to the University’s dangerous acquiescence. In its joint statement “Against Anticipatory Obedience,” AAUP National’s Committee on College and University Governance, and its Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, wrote that “The Trump administration and many Republican led state governments appear poised to accelerate attacks on academic freedom, shared governance, and higher education as a public good. They will attack the curricular authority of the faculty on a number of fronts, including professors’ ability to undertake ‘teaching, research, and service that respond to the needs of a diverse global public.’ It is the higher education community’s responsibility not to surrender to such attacks—and not to surrender in anticipation of them.”
While it is frightening how widely and quickly these attacks are occurring, it is unconscionable that University of Cincinnati Leadership is anticipatorily surrendering to them. There is still time to reach an agreement that protects, at least for the next three years, several fundamental rights of faculty at UC. With the filing of the Unfair Labor Practice charge, we are urging University Leadership to reconsider its decision. The AAUP-UC Chapter—at the bargaining table, at the State Employment Relations Board, on our campus, in our cities, and in our State—will continue to vigorously and loudly oppose these attacks.
In solidarity,
The AAUP-UC Bargaining Team and Executive Council
