The Oakland University American Association of University Professors (OU-AAUP) held its first Bargaining Kickoff event to gather and celebrate the support for the upcoming bargaining season.
On April 16 at noon, faculty, students and guest speakers came together at the Oakland Center’s Banquet Rooms to express support for the bargaining team and platform. The bargaining season starts mid-May, and the current faculty contract ends on August 15.
Terrence Martin, president of the Michigan chapter of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), was the first guest speaker expressing support for OU-AAUP.
“You built the power to bring about quality change in your workplace, which is evidenced by the full room that you have here today,” Martin said. “What’s critical is that you all remain united, because our greatest assets are our collective voices and it is steeped in your bargaining platform.”
This year’s bargaining platform consists of three key areas — to restore wage growth, healthcare benefits and equitable retirement contributions, to preserve healthcare options, tuition benefits and shared curriculum governance, and to promote research, travel funding, free speech on campus and economic well-being.
“Our healthcare costs doubled last year, in addition to the money we’ve been losing to inflation,” Michael Latcha, OU-AAUP president, said. “The university has also chosen in the past to structure all raises in terms of merit — I personally cannot see that working right now.”
Latcha expanded on the policy that divides faculty retirement benefits, a key point that the bargaining team aims to eliminate.
“In the last rounds of negotiation, we were forced to take and make a separate second tier of faculty with retirement benefits that do not get the same retirement benefits that faculty who have been here for decades have,” Latcha said.
Thomas Discenna, the chief negotiator of the 2024 bargaining team, presented the remaining seven bargaining team members who underwent training for a year in preparation for this year’s contract negotiations:
- Jacob Becker, Professor of Criminal Justice
- Helen Levenson, Collection Development Librarian
- Lori Ostergaard, Director of Embedded Writing Specialist Program
- Cara Shelly, Special U.S. History Lecturer
- Kasaundra Tomlin, Associate Professor of Economics
- Amy Pollard, OU-AAUP Executive Director
- Fobert D. Fetter, Miller Cohen Law Firm Attorney
“This group we have comprised has learned to argue with one another, we have learned from one another and going forward, we are going to continue that work on all of your behalf,” Discenna said.
“This dedication to our passion for teaching the students at Oakland and our passion for serving the community and others in southeastern Michigan has been weaponized against us,” Discenna added. “We are asked to do more of these efforts at the same time that our wages are stagnating in nominal terms and declining in real terms.”
Caitlin Demsky, OU-AAUP vice president, echoed the sentiment of unity in the face of deteriorating working conditions.
“Over 70% of the nation’s faculty are now overworked and underpaid contingent instructors who receive inadequate benefits and no job security,” Demsky said. “Faculty working conditions are students’ learning conditions. A living wage and a reasonable workload are critical for ensuring quality education.”
The event organizer, Amy Pollard, finished the event with a bargaining solidarity video. The message featured OU alumni, staff and union organizers expressing their support for the negotiating team.
Latcha concluded the event by expressing the union’s sentiment and strategy for the bargaining season.
“In order to focus on our students, our research and our community, we will secure what we need from this round of bargaining,” Latcha said. “When we are united as a movement, as a faculty, as a campus community, we are stronger together.”
