ATHENS, Ohio — Nearly a year since Ohio University faculty voted to unionize, the university continues to fight the certification of the union election while simultaneously bargaining over the union’s contract.
In the process, OU has racked up spending on its outside labor counsel.
Records obtained from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office show from November 2024 to October 2025, OU spent a little over $200,000 on the labor counsel it retained to contend with its faculty union, United Academics of Ohio University.
“Over $200,000 sounds like an awful lot of money to me, especially given that, to try to even get any kind of faculty position at the university these days, which is a much lower number, is like getting blood from a stone,” Joe McLaughlin, an OU associate professor in English and member of the UAOU bargaining team, said.
As the Independent previously reported, OU spent $125,000 on legal fees related to the faculty union in the seven months prior to November 2024.
OU faculty voted overwhelmingly to unionize in an election that wrapped up in March 2025.
While OU argued with UAOU over the composition of the bargaining unit –– and subsequently fought to contest the election outcome and bargained with UAOU –– its monthly payments to Baker & Hostetler LLP ranged from $3,000 to over $40,000.
Ohio University Senior Director of Communications Dan Pittman described spending on labor counsel as “a typical expense associated with the development of a union contract,” noting that the outside counsel was appointed by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. Pittman also noted, “UAOU’s representatives also include a national representative from AFT.”
Pittman did not comment on the university’s spending on its lawsuit challenging faculty union certification.
McLaughlin said the university’s descriptions of expenses associated with bargaining and contesting the election certification “really grates, I think, upon me and would grate on many faculty.”
“I can’t imagine that parents and students who are paying a lot of money in tuition and taking on a lot of debt would be very happy about the idea that the university is using that money to take away from delivering quality education to fight a union,” McLaughlin added.
The faculty union has yet to secure a contract. As of Feb. 10, it had reached a tentative agreement with OU on four of the 21 proposed articles, according to a UAOU tracker.
McLaughlin said the union and OU reached tentative agreement on an additional article at a Feb. 11 bargaining session, and made progress on others.
However, he said the university has yet to weigh in on any of the union’s economic proposals, such as those on compensation and benefits. University representatives told the union at the Feb. 11 session that they didn’t know when they would be able to weigh in on those proposals, McLaughlin added.
Pittman declined to comment on specific matters discussed during negotiations, citing an Ohio Revised Code section that specifies that Ohio’s open meetings laws do not apply to bargaining meetings.
However, Pittman told the Independent, “It will be important for us to review any and all proposals that might inform the total compensation package before working with UAOU to finalize any singular proposal that may only comprise a portion of their total proposed package.”
The union had submitted all proposals related to compensation by the end of October, 2025, McLaughlin said. However, he said “they have to have been thinking about and strategizing what they were willing to do on compensation” since the union election was certified in May 2025.
“So it rings kind of hollow this idea that they’re not ready to talk about it,” McLaughlin said.
The union wrote in a report on the Jan. 28 bargaining session, “All bargaining unit faculty members at OU should demand that the Administration take seriously their responsibility to come to the table with new counterproposals to our proposed articles, as these are important and consequential issues that impact Ohio University faculty.”
McLaughlin said the university’s lack of movement on the union’s economic proposals reflects a “strategy of delay.” He said that strategy appears to be bound up with the university’s efforts to challenge the union election’s certification.
The Franklin County case challenges SERB’s decision to dismiss OU’s objections to the faculty union election. The university argues that UAOU violated state administrative law during its election campaign by holding members-only meetings.
The union has critiqued those arguments as “absurd” and “meritless.” It also suggested that if SERB ruled in OU’s favor it could significantly hamper the ability of workers to organize across the state.
SERB dismissed OU’s objections in May last year, and the university appealed the decision the same month. The case remains pending, with no new filings since October 2025 and no future court dates scheduled.
Pittman told the Independent in an email, “The ongoing court appeal against the State Employment Relations Board, which takes issue with irregularities in the union election process, has neither impacted the University’s ongoing commitment to negotiating in good faith nor its timeline for negotiations.”
McLaughlin said the case does have an impact on negotiations, however.
“They’re clearly trying to cast doubt in the public sphere, but I think also among faculty on campus and even our members, of whether or not we’re legitimate,” he said, adding that that has a “huge bearing on the negotiations.”
At a bargaining session in August 2025, the university declined to consider the article on recognition of the union, citing OU’s ongoing legal fight against the certification of the union election in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, according to notes posted on the UAOU website.
All contract articles must be ratified by both OU and the union in order for the contract to be finalized.
As the university continues bargaining and contesting the election in the Franklin County case, it will continue to face related legal fees.
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