Why OU workers built a union

Recently, we spoke with Jacob Jakuszeit, former Classified Senate Chair, about the campaign to unionize non-bargaining classified staff at Ohio University (OU). In the final part of this three part series, Jacob talks class, rank-and-file engagement, and why classified staff’s decision to unionize was the right move.

Since the interview, non-bargaining classified staff successfully won a union with 82.8% of the vote (265 votes in favor and 55 opposed).

Part one of the interview is available here, and part two is available here.

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ALF: There are ostensibly a number of routes one could take to address workplace grievances — talking with administration, looking for another job, seeking a promotion, etc — that are often put forward as more “legitimate.” Why do folks feel that unionization in particular is the most appropriate?

J: I think there are a number of experiences to justify unionizing. The systems that we have in place at the university are not designed to give us strength or recourse. They’re more like Benadryl for your allergies: it doesn’t do away with your allergies, it just makes them a little bit more bearable.

I’ve seen an employee written up and put on unpaid leave for three days for being one minute late to work — mind you, not using a timeclock, but based on the door swipe computer. Nowhere in OU policy does it say that the swipe system is supposed to be used for monitoring when people come and go from buildings. But bosses and leadership will use anything they have at their disposal to go after employees they don’t like. There was something they didn’t like about that employee; it wasn’t “fireable,” so they found some way to penalize them. They always find a way to work within their systems because they’ve written these policies. 

The good relationships that people might have with their supervisor or coworkers can end at any time: your supervisor can leave, you can be eliminated, jobs can be cut in large numbers. And there is no recourse because the systems we have in place at the university are meant to protect the institution and the state government — from lawsuit, from liability. They’re not meant to empower staff, faculty, or students. 

[When pursuing supposedly more “legitimate” paths] it’s the larger structures that we’re bumping up against and finding that we’re an inconvenience to the administration — we’re a pebble in their shoe that they can do away with very easily. We’re trying to make it harder for them to disregard us, so they have to sit down with us, acknowledge what we want and whether or not they’re going to give it to us, and have that be in writing. 

ALF: Is there any feeling amongst folks that this is just a problem with “poor management” within the upper levels of the administration that could be solved with new leadership?

J: No, and I think that’s why we’ve been successful. I don’t think that a change in leadership would make a difference in the actual lived reality of classified staff. But I think if there were more talented people in positions of leadership, they definitely could have done things to delay or dissuade people from wanting to unionize in non-threatening ways. They could have given raises — there’s lots of things that could have blunted people’s frustrations.

There was a long administration of the previous president, Dr. McDavis, and in just a few short years I’ve had lots of people say “I thought McDavis was bad; this is even worse.” We have classified employees who’ve been here over 45 years, so there’s a lot of institutional knowledge and history in our ranks. They’ve seen that it’s not just who’s president at the university. It’s not just who’s a VP of this or that, or their dean, or their supervisor. They’ve seen that there’s been a fundamental shift in state funding from back in the ‘90s to now. They’ve seen that there’s a huge shift in how they’re treated and how they’re valued between 20 years ago and now. And none of those changes have been for the better. So they know that it’s not just about getting a different person in charge — it’s much bigger than that.

ALF: Talking in terms of class can sometimes be viewed as kind of “inappropriate,” especially in workplaces that are not-for-profit or with a mission that’s considered a “public good.” Is that something you’ve had any difficulty with during the union drive? Or has it been relatively easy to talk to people on those terms?

J: I mean, I don’t walk up to people and say “this is class warfare!” you know? [laughs] But I sent out an email to all classified coworkers on July 1 that was my farewell as [Classified Senate] Chair. I talk about the boom and bust extractive industries of this region, and that I’ve heard the argument that education is a current extractive industry in our region: you have members of leadership who — like the robber barons of years past — they come, they profit, they move on. What they leave behind is unemployment, layoffs, stagnant wages, a decrease in morale, and a feeling of inadequacy for the resident workers.

It’s not very hard to get people to talk about class and acknowledge where they are in the pecking order when you have a university where some people make half a million dollars each year and some people make $10, $12, $14 an hour. One person I work with talked about how their spouse makes more working in retail, because many retailers have set $15 minimum wages. I mean, I’m one of those people; I could go to Target and make more as a brand new employee than I do at OU after several years. So I think it’s very easy to see that there is an us-vs-them vibe within OU.

There are lots of classified staff who were raised by family who worked at the university, became students, graduated, and went on to work at OU. Whether you’re someone like me who came here from outside of the region and stuck around or you’re born and bred into the green and white, we have people who dedicate their entire adult lives and careers — who genuinely care about the place, and are not given the respect or the treatment they deserve.

And that is a classic working-class experience: the factory shuts down, the mine shuts down, the timber industry runs out of town. These are things that have happened over and over again to working people throughout Appalachia and the wider US.

ALF: You mentioned before that it moved beyond a simple card drive early on; has there been a lot of rank and file engagement in the process?

J: It’s been a real mix. There have been ardent supporters, people who want a union and say “I will vote yes” the very first time you talk to them. But they never want to come to a meeting, never want to join a phone call; they just want to be a union member. And that’s fine — we need union members too. But there are also people who were part of the previous organizing campaign who took vacation days to walk around campus to meet people, get to know them, and understand where they stand on the idea of unionizing. A lot of those conversations started off with “hey, I heard that there’s a lot of talk about unionizing going around, what do you think about that?” and just letting people share their thoughts, their concerns, their fears. There’s lots of fear of retribution and things like that early on of course.

Before the pandemic, people were working their full time jobs across a large organization, who then had to go home to areas where they don’t necessarily have good internet, and they have families they take care of. Not being shift workers all working on a factory floor together, we all have things that are pulling us in different directions. Having paid organizers has been instrumental in connecting all of us and building those bridges, but there has definitely been a core group of classified workers who have been just… I can’t even think of high enough praise for the level of dedication and work that some people have put in — just calling people, “oh, yeah, I’ve heard that name before, I’ll talk to them.” There’s a certain willingness because there’s trust built up between these employees that have been very involved and have been at the organization for 20 or 30 years. So they have a level of respect from their colleagues, and there’s an intrinsic trust in them that an outside organizer does not have.

ALF: For those of us who don’t work at OU, or who aren’t non-bargaining classified staff, what can folks do to support the unionization effort and the union in general? 

J: I think for unionizing in general, signs of support are important. I’m not gonna say anything about voting for the right people, or buying union-only products or anything like that; I’m just going to say that it’s incumbent on us to stay involved in the community outside of when it’s time for contract negotiations. And it’s incumbent on the community — if they’re interested in having a vibrant town that appreciates and supports its workers — to be aware of what’s going on, but also to physically show up. Because that’s what’s made the big difference we’ve seen recently, and why Black Lives Matter is not something that makes a news appearance, but instead is an ongoing point of conversation and a visible part of people’s lives.

I think there’s too many people who think that if they vote the right way then that’s sufficient, and I think what we are showing through our organization is: it takes us actually unionizing, it takes us actually fighting for ourselves. That applies to all levels of employment at any wage and applies to all things in education, both higher education and K-12. You effect change by showing up and being present. Even the most conservative school board won’t make an unpopular decision with enough pushback. We can make things happen, but it can’t rely on clicktivism or every four years going to the polls. It’s imperative that people actively support and find ways to seek that out, and also make it clear that our community would support workers who go on strike and take care of their families. That includes city workers, firefighters, EMS workers, O’Bleness nurses… not cops. 

There’s a level of empowerment with forming your own organization and seeing, acknowledging, and then owning that there’s little in the world that we can control as individuals, but as a group with a common purpose we can achieve so much more. Throughout the Appalachian region there’s this mantra of individual survival and triumph over adversity. But in reality, underneath that surface there is an enormous amount of community that goes into supporting people — a rich heritage of labor organizing. You know, up near the Millfield area there are caves where people met and fought against the coal mine bosses and organized. There’s a rich history here that’s very class-based — very rooted in the notion of “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.” It’s a very basic notion and it’s not necessarily unique to being leftist or socialist; it’s what capitalism pretends to be about, right? That if you work hard, you’ll get ahead. But what we have all seen is: public education, benefits, and pay have all been eroded. So we need to band together.

ALF: Is there anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t covered?

J: One thing that people have talked about is actual shared governance — democratic control of units or divisions. You know, the library deciding what our priorities are as opposed to them being handed down from upon high, and having basically a socialist idea of bottom up control over our organizations that we work within.

I’ve had multiple people before the pandemic say “if OU’s going to cut, I wish that I could voluntarily go down to 4 days a week. I’m going to retire soon, and if that could save someone’s job, I would be happy to do that.” I think that people are willing to sacrifice when they know it’s being done for a good reason, and that’s not what’s been happening over the last few months.

The biggest inefficiency I see in a large organization like OU is that leadership doesn’t involve the people who are going to be doing the day-to-day work during planning. The end-users for our systems and spaces should be empowered to lead decision-making. For example, if you don’t have the custodians involved in the planning of a bathroom, you’re setting yourself up for failure; they know that the equipment they use requires a hose connection, and you don’t put one of those in, so now they have to get a 100-foot long hose to snake through the building in order to clean the bathroom. That’s a real example that happened in the library. 

It was a custodian who pointed out this issue to me. He said “I told my supervisor about it, but there’s no avenue for my input to get back to project managers.” It’s $5 or $10 worth of plumbing parts when you’re installing a brand new bathroom to put in a hose fixture. But it costs $2,000 for them to come back much later, cut holes in the walls, and braise the pipes together. There are plenty of instances like that in all job types around our campuses — some people make decisions and the rest of us aren’t even allowed to contribute.

That’s what employees that do these kinds of front-facing jobs and “lower-level” positions have developed: workarounds for systems that shouldn’t need workarounds if they were driven from the bottom-up. We organize because we know there’s a better way, and together we can build a better place to work and learn.

ALF: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Jake. This was really helpful.

J: Anytime. Thanks for having me.

>>Click here to read Part One
>>Click here to read Part Two