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.
