YOUNGSTOWN — Talks on ending a faculty strike at Youngstown State University continued Wednesday into a second late-night session, seeking to avoid a fourth day of pickets on campus.

Talks had proven fruitless during Tuesday night’s negotiations, but the parties decided late Wednesday to keep talking into another night.

“We are hoping the two sides can reach agreements on the major issues and deliver a tentative agreement,” said Mark Vopat, spokesman for the YSU Ohio Education Association, which represents the faculty. “Our members want to return to work.”

Faculty have been on strike since Monday. Fall break was Monday and Tuesday, and classes resumed Wednesday.

YSU President Jim Tressel also said he was hopeful that the university’s latest offer to faculty could end the strike.

Still, Vopat said the offer the administration made Wednesday talked about wages, but did not address a host of other issues important to the union.

More than two-thirds of the YSU-OEA members were on the picket line — physically and virtually — at various periods of the school day, according to the union.

Vopat said what was “suspiciously absent” from the university’s proposal on Wednesday afternoon was “all of the other requests we have made to keep the same rights we had in our last contract.”

The union said if it were to accept the administration’s proposal:

∫ Faculty members could be forced by the administration to increase substantially both the number of classes they teach each semester and the number of students taught in each class;

∫ Faculty members will have no say in the election of their chairs or in the operations of their departments;

∫ They will lose rights that allow them to participate actively in developing academic programs and innovative partnerships.

The union has “said over and over again these are our fundamental sticking points. It’s not about the money. Obviously in any negotiation, that’s a factor,” Vopat said.

“But our real concern and what is angering the faculty right now is loss of shared governance, the idea that we don’t have a say in how our university is run.”

The union urged the YSU Board of Trustees to intervene.

“While they (university administration) have moved toward us in their salary and health care offers, they steadfastly refuse to budge on language that hits at the core of what we do as faculty,” YSU-OEA President Steven Reale said.

ENHANCED PROPOSAL

The university admistration announced Wednesday that it had offered the faculty union an “enhanced contract proposal” that includes increasing base salaries by 4 percent.

The proposal includes no pay raise in the first year and base pay raises of 2 percent in both the second and third years. The university’s previous proposal called for base raises of 0, 1 and 2 percent.

“This offer is more than fair given the university’s difficult financial challenges, not to speak of the many unknowns moving forward with the COVID-19 pandemic,” Anita Hackstedde, chairwoman of the YSU trustees, said.

“We are hopeful that the faculty will accept this offer, call off the strike and return to the classroom in support of our students,” she said.

The university also stated in a news release that there have been no layoffs or pay cuts for YSU faculty, in contrast to other universities in Ohio and across the nation.

Employees on strike are not paid and their health insurance benefits are suspended, the university noted.

Tressel has emphasized that classes, for the most part, would occur as scheduled. They were covered by full-time faculty who have chosen not to go on strike, part-time faculty and other qualified instructors.

Due to the pandemic many YSU classes were being taught online, so the number of students that typically would be on campus is lower, according to Ron Cole, university spokesman.

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