We began the session encouraged that the Administration’s Bargaining Team brought a full counter response. This means we are able to get down to serious bargaining sooner. We were also encouraged that they stated that this was their initial response, but there was room for movement.
Unfortunately, their counter offer provided minimal substantive response to our concerns, in fact addressing only 1 concern: notifying faculty when their health insurance will end. All of our other concerns were rejected outright.
Among the concerns they rejected–
- Asking units to define full-time workloads so when faculty are asked to do extra work, it’s clear they should receive extra compensation.
- Any pay increases, they instead want the full power to decide later if and when faculty receive raises and how much.
- Multi-year contracts for the professorial track.
- Any professional development funds.
Throughout, they expressed their desire to leave solutions to these problems up to individual faculty members. However, that does not protect individual faculty from abuses, and ignores the reason we created this union in the first place: members fighting for consistent protections and better working conditions for everyone.
We hope to see more specific responses to our concerns in future sessions. For next session, both sides agreed to begin work on the articles where we see the most common ground: Article IV: Union Membership and Activity and Article IX: Benefits and Leaves.
Come hear for yourself why they rejected our proposal for items like retired faculty access to the library system.
All members are invited to see bargaining first-hand, hear the administration’s stance, and make sure we’re representing your interests.
Next Session:
Friday, April 12th
9:00am – 12:00pm
Illinois Fire Service Institute (Digital signs within the building will alert you to the room.)
