Disaffiliating from AAUP would allow KSUFA to enjoy increased financial security. Disaffiliation would reduce our annual expenses by roughly $140,000—the approximate amount we will pay to AAUP national in affiliation dues this year. Potentially, we could channel some of the savings into increased services for our members or even reduce membership dues. Alternatively, we could create a new strategic reserve designed to assist faculty who might be involuntarily separated from the University should the University be forced to invoke reduction in force of FTNTT faculty or the retrenchment of TT faculty at some point in the future.
Disaffiliating from AAUP would allow KSUFA to maintain our status as an independent union and even more fully exercise our autonomy. We might be able to fund academic year workload equivalency for a faculty member who would keep an eye on problematic legislation being floated in Columbus and serve as our voice at the Statehouse. We might be able to provide a dedicated budget to our advocacy committees (Committee W, Committee Q, and the Racial and Ethnic Concerns Committee). We would have the freedom and the financial resources to evolve in almost any way that Kent State’s faculty might need us to evolve.
A more detailed answer question can be found in Vol. 3: The pros and cons of disaffiliating from AAUP of the “Our Kent State Faculty Union and AAUP” series.
There is a significant financial cost to our union and its members in remaining affiliated. We currently pay roughly $140,000 annually in affiliation dues to AAUP national and over $40,000 annually to Ohio Conference AAUP (OCAAUP). At the current affiliation dues rate and given our current membership, getting into compliance with our AAUP national affiliation dues would cost our union approximately an additional $65,000 this fiscal year alone. That amount would almost certainly go up every subsequent year given that AAUP national’s affiliation dues increase each year by a percentage pegged to inflation. Moreover, we would almost certainly be expected to pay back the arrears in our affiliation dues going back to 2020 (currently over $345,000 and increasing every quarter). To cover this increase without loss of service to our members, we would have to ask the membership to raise dues from the current rate of 0.8% of base academic year salary to 1% of base academic year salary. As affiliation dues to OCAAUP and AAUP national increase, we would need to increase dues periodically in order to continue to provide the same level of representation to Kent State’s faculty that we do now.
In addition to the financial cost, remaining affiliated with AAUP would compromise KSUFA’s strength and independence as the exclusive bargaining agent (union) representing Kent State’s faculty. The current leadership of AAUP national does not acknowledge our status as a wholly autonomous union with our own Constitution that cannot be overridden or revised except by a vote of our members. They continue to assert that, when AAUP affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) at the national level, our union automatically became an AFT Chapter even though our union had not voted to affiliate with AFT – a step that would be required by our Constitution. Remaining affiliated with AAUP would entail becoming compliant with the increased set of rules imposed on AAUP/AFT chapters since the merger with AFT. It would also require us to accept that a vote by individuals who are not Kent State faculty can override our Constitution. That would pose a serious threat to our autonomy as an independent union.
A more detailed answer question can be found in Vol. 2: The pros and cons of remaining affiliated with AAUP and becoming compliant with our affiliation dues of the “Our Kent State Faculty Union and AAUP” series.
The main benefit we get from our affiliation with AAUP is that AAUP is a national organization committed to defending academic freedom, protecting tenure, defending faculty governance, and more generally promoting the interests of faculty and institutions of higher education. AAUP has effective lobbyists at the state and national level and is well respected by state and federal elected leaders. Remaining affiliated would be the most straightforward way of continuing to support these activities we value.
A more detailed answer question can be found in Vol. 2: The pros and cons of remaining affiliated with AAUP and becoming compliant with our affiliation dues of the “Our Kent State Faculty Union and AAUP” series.
At a meeting on October 30, 2024, we invited AAUP leaders to submit a statement that we could share with our members outlining what they take to be the benefits to our union of remaining affiliated with AAUP. Their statement (received on February 5, 2025) is linked here.
This was definitely not the timing we would have chosen, but AAUP national forced our hand at a meeting on September 13, 2024. Our union has been out of compliance with our affiliation dues obligations to AAUP since March of 2020 when our Joint Coordinating Board (JCB) – the decision making-body for matters affecting the union as a whole – adopted a resolution to cap the affiliation dues we would pay to AAUP national and Ohio Conference AAUP combined at 28% of our dues revenue (the percentage we were contributing prior to the 2018 Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME rendering the collection of fair share fees unconstitutional). The JCB had considered calling for a vote to disaffiliate in 2020, given that affiliation dues to AAUP had reached nearly 40% of our dues revenue because of the loss of fair-share fee revenue. At first, AAUP took no action beyond removing our good standing at the national level and denying us delegates to the national meeting. However, at the September 13th meeting, AAUP President, Todd Wolfson, raised the issue of our non-compliance with our affiliation dues obligations and insisted that we take steps to get back into compliance. As a result of this meeting, we were left with a stark choice: either vote to disaffiliate or vote to raise membership dues so that we can send more money in affiliation dues to AAUP national in Washington DC.
A more detailed answer to this question can be found in Vol. 1: A deep dive into the history and circumstances leading to our disaffiliation discussions of the “Our Kent State Faculty Union and AAUP” series.
