The Worker’s View: SB1 throws Central Ohio Technical College union contract into turmoil

Central Ohio Technical College (COTC) is burning decades of bridges and goodwill built between the college and its union, United Faculty/Central Ohio Technical College, over SB1. 

First established in 1991, United Faculty has had a good relationship with COTC administration for years, said Martin Schmerr, a biology professor who also serves as the union president. Both sides even engaged in interest-based bargaining, where, instead of the more traditional, adversarial approach in which each party states their position and fights to maintain it – only conceding ground under duress – both parties raise the problems they’re facing and then work together toward a mutually beneficial solution. Interest-based bargaining is how the most recent union contract was achieved, so Schmerr was surprised when the administration suddenly reneged on the contract. 

“Unfortunately, we are in a situation where the college is refusing to sign the current contract after the faculty have ratified [it],” said Schmerr. “College leadership has argued that to comply with SB1, the contract will have to have language removed that’s necessitated by Senate Bill 1. We strongly disagree with that position.” 

Ohio Senate Bill 1 is the Republican legislature’s attempt to dismantle academic freedom under the guise of rolling back corporatized diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. The bill strips funding from university classes, services, organizations, events, and scholarships that support students and faculty with historically marginalized identities. 

“[SB1] is a concern for the faculty because we do have faculty who teach in areas that have been deemed by the law to be unacceptable,” Schmerr said. “It has a very substantial impact on our faculty evaluation process. Student evaluations are heavily tied to … whether or not we’ll be rehired as term contract faculty members.”

The fear is that students who object to the class content will use SB1 evaluations to pressure the college into repercussions against professors, ranging from forced curriculum changes to potentially not being rehired. After all, one of the required questions in the evaluation asks, “Does the faculty member create a classroom atmosphere free of political, racial, gender, and religious bias?” 

“That’s deeply worrisome because the heavy weight to those student evaluations is a signal to the faculty that the students must be kept happy,” Schmerr said. “I think the intention is to silence faculty voices and limit discussion to topics that are just not deemed offensive, and it’s nebulous as to who decides what the topics of controversy are.” 

Further, Schmerr said adhering to SB1 meant faculty would be doing considerably more work – for the same amount of pay. 

SB1 dictates that faculty workload is defined by an assigned amount of credit hours based on time as determined by the Ohio Department of Education. However, credit hours don’t always reflect the amount of time professors actually spend in the classroom, which is a more accurate representation of the amount of work the class requires. That measurement is called contact hours. Schmerr teaches Anatomy and Physiology, a four-credit-hour class that meets weekly for three hours of lectures and two hours of lab, for a total of five contact hours. 

“I would potentially have to take on more workload to fulfill my contractual obligation,” Schmerr said. “Our faculty that teach in the health program have clinicals, and clinicals typically have a very low component of credit hours but have a considerable amount of contact hours. … It could considerably increase the workload for faculty, and COTC has one of the higher faculty workloads of the two-year institutions in Ohio. … To demand more negates our ability to be effective.” 

These are some of the most impactful ways in which SB1’s language conflicts with the worker protections included in United Faculty/Central Ohio Technical College’s union contract, though they are not the only ways in which college faculty are negatively impacted by SB1. The college administration is refusing to sign the union contract until the conflicting language is stricken. 

“Our understanding of SB1 will likely evolve as it is interpreted and implemented by the Ohio Department of Higher Education and others. Currently, it is clear that the workload and evaluation articles in the tentative agreement are prohibited subjects of bargaining and must yield to SB1,” COTC administration said in a statement issued by the college’s legal representative, the Attorney General’s office. 

However, United Faculty and their organizing body, the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT), argue that there was another law already in effect that would render the effects of SB1 as related to their union contract null. OFT cited Section 4117.10 of the Ohio Revised Code in a statement: “[According to the law], after reaching a tentative agreement, the employer’s representative has 14 days to present the agreement to their Board, followed by the Board having 30 days to hold a vote on the agreement. If they don’t act within that timeline the contract ‘is deemed approved.’ The COTC Board voted to reject the agreement on May 20, 2025, which is 54 days after the agreement was reached, and therefore after the contract was already ‘deemed approved’ by law. The faculty union ratified the contract on April 29.” 

“They may not agree with the language we currently have, but … because of their failure to act in a timely manner, they’ve deemed the contract accepted [by law],” Schmerr said.

The administration claims to be within its rights not to sign the union contract since both parties are at an impasse – a provision that it said is outlined in the bargaining agreement. 

Administration cited Article II, G.2 in claiming the contract is only signed when both parties agree: “When the disposition of all items submitted for bargaining has been agreed to by the parties, the proposed agreement shall be reduced to writing and first submitted to the UF/COTC for consideration by its membership. If ratified by the UF/COTC, the proposed agreement shall be submitted to the Board of Trustees for its consideration. If approved by both parties, the Collective Bargaining Agreement shall be signed by the appropriate representative of each party.”

In response to the COTC administration’s refusal to formally sign the union contract, United Faculty filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the State Employee Relations Board (SERB) on June 6. The COTC administration declined to sign by June 27, the date on which SB1 went into effect. United Faculty continues to await SERB’s decision, which could determine whether the union will move forward with legal action. The decision on the timing of when the union contract is deemed legally signed – regardless of whether there are fresh, voluntary signatures from COTC administration – is key. 

To support United Faculty, Schmerr encouraged sending letters to the president of COTC and the Board of Trustees.