Thinking about leaving YSU-OEA?
If you are thinking about dropping your YSU-OEA membership, we would rather hear from you than lose you. Two misunderstandings cost people real money every year, so those come first. Then the honest case for staying. The mechanics of cancelling are at the bottom, if that is what you came for.
Two things that cost people money
Telling payroll to stop is not cancelling. Your dues authorization is an agreement between you and OEA; the YSU payroll office only carries it out. Asking payroll to stop the deduction — by email, by form, in person, however politely — does not revoke your authorization, does not cancel your membership, and does not end your dues obligation. What happens instead is the worst version of events: the deduction stops while the obligation keeps running and the unpaid balance accumulates. Your enrollment form is explicit that if your employment ends or you take an unpaid leave, “the unpaid balance of the annual dues obligation not deducted during the year will be due the organizations.” People find out months later, as a bill.
There is one window, and it is in August. Dues are annual — September 1 through August 31 — not a monthly subscription you can switch off partway through. A revocation counts only if it is in writing, signed by you, sent to OEA at the addresses printed on your enrollment form, and received between August 1 and August 31 of the membership year before the one you want cancelled. Outside that window your form commits you to the remainder of that year’s dues “regardless of membership status,” and dues are not prorated for someone who cancels mid-year.
So leaving in October does not save you this year’s dues. It costs you a year of protection you have already paid for.
What you would be giving up
Some things come with membership and only with membership.
- OEA/NEA Legal Services Program. Attorney representation in employment matters, at no cost to you. Your coverage began on the date you signed your enrollment form and ends when your membership does. If a problem surfaces six months from now, the question will be whether you were a member when it started.
- Educators Employment Liability coverage. NEA’s liability protection covers you if a student, a parent, or a third party brings a claim arising out of your work. Your homeowner’s policy does not.
- Your voice and your vote. Members ratify the contract, elect the officers, and choose the bargaining team. That vote counts for more now, not less: Senate Bill 1 narrowed what can be bargained at all, so the ground still in play — compensation, health care, and everything the Board has not taken off the table — gets decided by whoever shows up. Non-members live under the result with no say in it.
- The right to run for office and serve. Bargaining team, grievance committee, OEA and NEA delegate. Every one of those requires membership.
- NEA Member Benefits. Insurance, loan and retirement programs, discounts, and professional development and grant programs open only to members.
One more, easy to miss: if you have an open legal matter, OEA requires you to maintain membership for the life of that case. Dropping in the middle of one is not an option.
What leaving does not change
We will be straight with you, because you will hear this from someone eventually.
YSU-OEA remains the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for everyone in the bargaining unit, member or not. The contract still covers you — your salary, your health coverage, the grievance procedure, the discipline protections in Article 12. Under Article 8 a grievant is “a member of the bargaining unit,” and our obligation to represent you fairly does not turn on your dues. And since Janus in 2018 there are no fair share fees; Article 22.2 of our own contract says so. If you drop, you pay nothing.
That is exactly the point — and since Senate Bill 1 there is a harder version of it.
Read the top of your own contract
Open Articles 10, 11, 13 and 14, and Appendix B. Each one now begins with the same paragraph. Tenure, non-reappointment, retrenchment, annual performance evaluation, peer evaluation, post-tenure review, student evaluation of teaching and workload “are not appropriate subjects for bargaining under Ohio Revised Code Chapter 4117.” Board of Trustees policy “prevails over any conflicting provisions of this Agreement.” And administration of those provisions “is not subject to challenge under any grievance, arbitration, unfair labor practice charge, lawsuit, or any other legal action.”
Read that last clause again. On those subjects there is no grievance to file — not for you, not for a member, not for anyone. Faculty strikes are barred. The contractual tools we had in 2023 are narrower than they were.
Which is an argument for more union, not less
What survived SB 1 is the part that still works, and all of it is paid for by members: the compensation and benefits that remain bargainable, the grievance and arbitration procedure on everything SB 1 did not reach, individual legal representation through the OEA/NEA Legal Services Program, and the legislative work to change the statute itself.
If you are thinking of leaving because the contract protects less than it used to, you have drawn a reasonable conclusion from the wrong premise. The protection shrank because of a law, not because the union stopped working. Laws get changed by organizations large enough to change them — and the count of who is in is the only number that has ever moved one.
Before you decide, talk to us
Most people who land on this page are not angry at the union. They are angry about something specific — an evaluation that went badly, a workload assignment nobody explained, a chair problem, a course release that vanished, a dues deduction that hit in a bad month.
Every one of those is something we can work on, and several of them are things the contract already gives you a remedy for. A fifteen-minute conversation costs you nothing, and it has solved far more of these than a cancellation ever has.
Contact us: Mandy Fehlbaum, YSU-OEA President, president@ysuoea.org or Jackie Mercer, YSU-OEA 1st Vice President, 1stvp@ysuoea.org
We would rather have the hard conversation than lose you quietly.
The Mechanics
How do I revoke my dues authorization?
In writing, signed by you, sent to OEA by U.S. Mail or email at the addresses printed on your enrollment form, and received between August 1 and August 31 of the membership year before the one you want cancelled. Tell your YSU-OEA treasurer too — the local is required to forward your written request to the OEA Membership Department right away. Not payroll: a message to payroll is not a revocation and never has been.
What if I miss the August window?
Your enrollment form commits you to the remainder of that membership year’s dues “regardless of membership status.” Dues are annual, September 1 to August 31, and they are not prorated for someone who cancels mid-year.
If I cancel my membership, do the dues stop?
Not automatically. They are two separate decisions, and they can come apart. Your membership can end — along with your legal coverage, your vote, and your benefits — while the dues obligation runs to the end of the membership year. That is the worst of both outcomes, and it is the most common one when someone cancels outside the August window.
What happens after I send my request?
- OEA Membership logs the request and forwards it to the OEA Legal Department.
- Legal reviews the language in our collective bargaining agreement, your own enrollment form, the dues deduction period, and local practice and governance documents.
- A decision is issued after OEA consults with YSU-OEA. You are notified directly, with a copy to the local.
- Deductions continue until that decision is final. If Legal sets a date on which your dues obligation ends, anything collected after that date is refunded to you.
What if I want to rejoin later?
You are welcome back. But a membership re-enrolled after September 30 is treated as interrupted: you would have no rights, privileges, or benefits of membership for the period from September 1 to the date you re-enroll.
What if the problem is the cost?
Say so before you drop. Dues are reduced for members on an approved leave of one-half of the year or more and for members working less than half time, and there are other arrangements. Ask first.