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.
