College announces “One Oberlin,” a comprehensive plan on how the college could cut costs annually. UAW-represented workers requested to be part of the process of drafting the report and were refused.

College announces it is “formally considering contracting with outside vendors for dining and janitorial positions.” This would impact 108 workers. The College claims outsourcing would save $2 million a year but never produces numbers to substantiate its claim. 

“I thought they were just bluffing. I really thought they were just bluffing. I never thought it would actually happen.” 

Pat

Over 600 students and other community members assemble outside of the General Faculty meeting to protest the outsourcing announcement. One banner reads, “It’s Not One Oberlin Minus 108.”

Oberlin College and UAW formally negotiate for the first time. Students gather outside of the negotiation room in protest of the layoffs and in solidarity with the workers. 

“When the college went to the union and said, ‘AVI gave us $6 million and they’re going to renovate our kitchens,’ and so they’re gone... You know, they had that deal made before they even started negotiating. You don’t make a deal like that overnight.” 

Mary

More than 500 students, faculty, staff, and alumni rally in Wilder Bowl to protect jobs and to protest union-busting. The crowd marches to the Hotel at Oberlin, where five students meet with members of the Board of Trustees. They also deliver a petition against the layoffs signed by over 2,400 alumni, students, and faculty. After the meeting, Board of Trustees Chair Chris Canavan states:

“[discussions] sparked by the reaction to the outsourcing announcement . . . have not led any trustee to reconsider whether or not this is the pathway forward.”

President Carmen Twillie Ambar announces that because of the COVID-19 pandemic students must go home, ending on campus anti-outsourcing organizing.

Negotiations between the College and UAW continue remotely. During negotiations, the “College never produced an initial contract proposal, nor subsequent ones; its last proposal was also its first. This meant that for four months, the UAW was negotiating in the dark, negotiating with itself essentially, making offers and concessions, with no sense of what the magic number was, or indeed if there was a magic number. This does not meet any definition of bargaining in good faith.”

The College issues a “take-it-or-leave-it” proposal insisting that the UAW agree to massive concessions without any protection from outsourcing in the near future. The UAW files an unfair labor practice charge against the College for negotiating in bad faith.

The UAW and College announce that they have reached a severance agreement that has been ratified by UAW members.

In order to receive severance benefits, employees are required to sign a document dropping the unfair labor practice claim. Employees over age 40 are also required to waive any age discrimination claims.

The College officially terminates 108 UAW employees two months earlier than it had previously announced. Without warning, it also adds 5 more UAW members to the layoff list, bringing the total to 113.

Oberlin College’s endowment surpasses $1 billion, though the College doesn’t announce this fact until March 2021.

Moody’s rating agency raises Oberlin’s rating, citing growth in the endowment and “successful execution of a number of key institutional initiatives to date that have driven improved operating performance”; in other words, cost- cutting.

Campus Safety & Security contract expires.

Carpenters contract expires.

OCOPE contract expires.