Rudy Fichtenbaum for Retiree Member Seat on STRS Ohio Board

Rudy Fichtenbaum is a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Wright State University. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and was a faculty member at Wright State University from 1980-2015. He served as the National President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) from 2012-2020. He also served on the Executive Committee of AAUP at Wright State (AAUP-WSU), and as the Chief Negotiator, including during the contract negotiations leading up to the historic 2019 strike. He was also a member of the Executive Board of the Dayton-Miami Valley Central Labor Council, where he represented AAUP-WSU. He has represented the Ohio Conference of AAUP in the stakeholder’s coalition Health Care Advocates (HCA) to help save health care benefits provided through STRS for retirees. HCA eventually became Health and Pension Advocates (HPA), and he has continued to represent OC-AAUP at HPA where he has been an outspoken critic of healthcare and pension cuts.

As a Board Member of STRS, Rudy would work to restore the COLA for retirees and fight against additional cuts in healthcare benefits. He would fight against additional pension cuts for active members, including the creation of a two-tier pension system. He would also work to reduce investment and administrative costs and advocate for increased employer contributions to help reduce the unfunded liability in the pension.