The College and its two biggest unions are jousting over who’s got to pay off the wandering medic to ensure the well-being of the workers of the fiefdom. Meanwhile, the students wait gingerly on the sidelines. Some push their way into the ring to yell encouragement to the challengers who cannot go on because the royal squad has covered itself from head to toe in armor.

The two sides yell taunts at one another, the unions heavily armed, the College heavily fortified. And the medic who sets the costs tends to other, distant lands.

This standoff can’t be decided unless the College is willing to shed its impenetrable armor. The College needs to be the catalyst in resolving the labor disputes on campus, trading the lances for proposals and the armor for cooperation.
OCOPE, to help this process, should stop grating their teeth over the College’s reticent bargaining tactics (however shoddy they may seem to the Oberlin crowd) and instead wage a campaign on healthcare, the great unifier between OCOPE and the UAW.

It is not hard to condone the workers’ feeling of frustration with the proposed contract. Single-parent families making less than $30,000 a year would be hit with skyrocketing costs and the College seems unwilling to budge on any of the major out-of-pocket costs and premiums. Together, these have been proven to place thousands of dollars more a year in costs upon union members. And the medic just bought a Mercedes, even though the roads are still lined with stones.

The College needs to shed its armor too because students — the future of the land — are hurt most as this match lasts deeper and deeper into the academic year. The stone tablets — like newspapers in the 21st century — are filled with views from both sides, but neither the College nor OCOPE is taking that conversation back to the bargaining table, where the give and take belongs.
Students hope that professors will find a way to hold classes during the strike, if nothing else because it costs some
$40,000 to be educated at the fifedom. But students were never a part of the problem, nor should they be held responsible to be part of the solution. If the professors, who have no union and are not threatening to strike, decide to hold class on the wrong side of the ring, students should not be condemned for working to complete the education that they and their families have worked so hard to make possible.
If pro-union students turn on ambivalent or anti-union students, then we have started a second jousting match, not brokered a truce in the current standoff.

Professors need to hold class off-campus in the event of a strike, because neither the unions, the College nor the students want the educational activities of the College affected if the workers walk out. The College — presumably both to continue classes and to keep professors neutral during the conflict — is accumulating rooms in the Oberlin Inn for class space during a strike. This may sound convenient, but the College is the proud owner of the Oberlin Inn. While not as objectionable as forcing students to cross picket lines to attend class, utilizing the Inn does not qualify as being wholly detached from the College.

The College and unions need to step out of the ring and trudge back to the negotiating table. The unions will not budge until the healthcare costs come down but the College is well aware that the medic is coming back next year looking for a Ferrari.

–Editor-in-Chief, Douglass Dowty
–Managing Editor, Faith Richards
–Commentary Editor, Casey Ashenhurst

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review editorial board—the Editor in Chief
and Commentary Editor—and do not necessarily reflect the view of the staff
of the Review.