Miami LIbrarians file for recognition as collective bargaining unit

Great news: just one week after the SERB decision announcing that the first FAM collective bargaining unit would be tenured, tenure-track and TCPL faculty, librarians have filed today to form their own bargaining unit.CONGRATULATIONS to our amazing librarians. Here’s the press release we’ve just shared:

Miami University Librarians File for Recognition as Collective Bargaining Unit​

Today, librarians at Miami University filed a petition for certification to form a collective bargaining unit as part of the Faculty Alliance of Miami (FAM), which is jointly affiliated with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). 

The newly proposed unit comes on the heels of the news that FAM’s first prospective bargaining unit — tenured and tenure-track professors as well as teaching professors, clinical faculty and lecturers (TCPL) — will vote this spring on forming a collective bargaining unit. 

FAM organizers originally sought to include all full-time faculty at Miami—including librarians—in their unit. However, the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) decision excluded the librarians from the unit, in part as they were labeled by the university as staff and not as faculty as they are at most Ohio public universities. However, the ruling did not preclude them from filing to form their own unit — and today,  they did.

“We stand in solidarity with fellow faculty — we are ready to win our own bargaining unit as part of the FAM family,” said Ken Irwin, Web Services Librarian. Theresa Kulbaga, a FAM lead organizer and tenured professor on the Hamilton campus, approves: “No one can keep our librarians down! We’re with them all the way.”

Julie Alexander, teaching professor in the Farmer School of Business, says she’s thrilled she will soon be able to vote “yes” for her faculty union. Meantime, she’s excited to support her librarian and visiting faculty colleagues as they organize. “We all work together to educate our students, and we will continue to work together as a union, just with separate contracts,” she said. 

Science librarian Ginny Boehme is confident that Miami librarians have the support they need to win their election when the time comes: “When we filed our original petition to bring our voices together with FAM, we meant it, and we have the full, enthusiastic support of our colleagues.”