An Athens County Court of Common Pleas judge ordered an injunction against Ohio University on Friday, prohibiting it from signing a lease with any developers for the Mill Street Apartments after a labor union filed suit.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, which represents public service employees, filed the request for an injunction against OU, claiming the university would break its contract with the union if it allowed a developer to hire private-sector maintenance workers.
Charlie Adkins, president of the AFSCME Local 1699, said that under the proposed lease OU has with Wesam Construction, Inc., of Chester -the company awarded the contract to renovate the apartments -any maintenance workers would be hired by the construction company.
That takes good-paying jobs with benefits from the community
Adkins said. If they're going to pay those kind of wages with benefits we should be doing them. (The university) is privatizing our work.
John Burns, OU legal counsel, said the university agreed not to sign any lease until the matter is resolved.
Adkins said the union could lose as many as five jobs if OU allowed Wesam to hire its own maintenance workers; Burns said only three would be lost. When the complex was shut down, three OU maintenance workers were moved to other jobs at the university, Burns said, not fired.
The apartment complex, owned and operated by OU, was closed in 2004 under the administration of then-OU President Robert Glidden, and slated for demolition. When Roderick McDavis was elected president of the university later that year, he decided the complex, located at the end of Mill Street near OU's intramural fields, should be renovated.
The larger concern in the union's suit, Adkins said, is the possible privatization of more of the university's workforce -including food service and residence hall employees -when more buildings, such as the new student center, are built or renovated.
If they do this to Mill Street I could see the construction companies saying
'We want to remodel them and run them.'
Burns said privatization was an important issue, but not one in this suit. If you privatize all the housing
clearly that would be an issue
he said. That would involve all the dorms and dining halls. But this (suit) doesn't involve them.
Adkins, a brick mason, has worked for OU since 1978. As president of the local AFSCME chapter, he represents 680 maintenance and service workers on the Athens, Chillicothe and Zanesville campuses of OU. The other three regional campuses' maintenance employees are not unionized.
The union also filed a grievance concerning the contract with the university, which would be handled through arbitration, not the courts. Burns said the university would prefer arbitration instead of court intervention.
Adkins said he hopes the judge rules that OU cannot sign a lease until it is determined whether the university would be breaking its contract with the union.
We try to have a communicative relationship with the union
Burns said, adding that he wrote a letter to and met with the union regarding the developments as early as this past fall.
A hearing is scheduled for April 15 between OU and the union in the Athens County Court of Common Pleas.
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Chuck Bowen
