No. Here at Kent State, we have a very close relationship with AFSCME local 153 and have supported them through the years with informational picketing and even a financial safety net for their members when a strike was contemplated. We hold a “solidarity chapter” membership in the Tri-County Labor Association, a regional division of AFL-CIO. We would support any one of the unions that make up the Tri-County Labor Association and they have backed us in our fight against SB 83 and now SB 1.
Our Association has always engaged in collective action and other solidarity activities in support of unions and movements with which we are not formally affiliated. In 2011, we reached out to the Fire and Police unions to form a Portage County coalition to fight Senate Bill 5, an existential threat to collective bargaining rights across the state. We walked the picket line in the fall of 2023 with members of the UAW local in Streetsboro when they were on strike. We have supported the faculty at Youngstown State with letter writing campaigns and other forms of solidarity even though they are affiliated with the Ohio Education Association (OEA) rather than AAUP. We have engaged in similar solidarity actions in support of unions representing nurses at various hospitals around the state.
If we were to disaffiliate from AAUP, we would continue to offer the sort of support we have offered in the past to the faculty at Akron University, Wright State, Ohio University, and other Chapters of Ohio Conference AAUP. We would continue to engage in collective actions in conjunction with AAUP and other state and national organizations and would continue to provide support for their advocacy work. These acts of solidarity are integral to our mission and reflect our values as one of the oldest and largest faculty unions in the state. Regardless of how we vote on the question of disaffiliation, we will always be part of the larger union movement. Independence would not mean isolation.
