Bargaining session with mediator scheduled for Aug. 16

The Faculty and Administration bargaining teams are scheduled to meet on Monday, August 16, starting at 8:30 a.m., with mediator Joe Wilson in attendance to assist the teams in reaching a contract settlement.

Faculty Chief Negotiator Greg Klein said, “It’s very disappointing that the administration doesn’t seem able to make it a priority to meet with the Faculty team and the mediator.”

“The original mediator who was scheduled to assist us was available on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday this week. Our team members revised our schedules—in some cases including rescheduling advising appointments with students—but the administration told the mediator that they ‘could not make any of the times offered this week work’.”

“The administrators offered possible meeting options for 3 hours on August 16 and 4 hours on August 19,” Greg said. “Our original mediator, John Gray, is not available on those days so we’re now working with a different mediator, Joe Wilson, who is available on the 16th but uncertain at the moment if he can be available on the 19th also.”

Mr. Wilson is a Commissioner of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) where he has served since 2019. He has served as the mediator in grievance cases for SEIU at Cincinnati State, and for the AAUP at the University of Cincinnati.

Prior to becoming a full-time mediator, Mr. Wilson was a staff member for the AFSCME Ohio Council 8 union in Cincinnati and Dayton. He also worked in the Human Resources Department for the City of Cincinnati, including two years as Director of HR.

The role of a mediator is to assist the sides in reaching agreement on issues and achieving a contract settlement at the bargaining table.

Greg continued, “When these negotiations started in May, the administration team told us that it was important to them to work with AAUP on resolving contractual concerns in a timely manner.”

“Now, it seems like reaching a resolution to Faculty contract negotiations is no longer a high priority matter for the administration.”

“However, our team remains hopeful that when we meet again on August 16 we can make real progress in resolving the remaining contract issues where Faculty and administration are still far apart,” Greg said.