- Download Printable Version of this Bargaining FAQ (.docx)
With the University’s budget crisis, how can NTFC ask for more money?
The University has money:
- The University of Illinois system had $1.5 billion of unrestricted net assets at the end of FY 2014, a twenty-five fold increase over the previous five years!
- State appropriations have been shrinking for some time. The University has anticipated this trend and is planning for it to continue in the future.
- U of I tuition income has increased 40% in the past six years, more than making up for the loss of State appropriations.
- Our Campus seems to have ample resources for its favorite projects: a new medical school, a design center, a new football coach with a staff of nine and a budget of over $24 million.
In contrast, our salary demands are modest and will make a minimal dent in the University’s budget:
- Our combined demands for improved compensation for just over 480 bargaining unit members amount to under three million dollars. This is a minuscule portion of UIUC’s estimated $2.04 billion budget.
- Other unions have successfully concluded contract negotiations in the past six months on our campus. Their new contracts include salary increases.
Our members’ salaries are very low. This makes it difficult to retain experienced faculty members who are central to the University’s teaching mission:
- Even though the vast majority of non-tenure track faculty have the highest degree in their field and work at the University full time, the median salary is under 56k.
- Most of us received our last salary increase in August 2013, and there have never been regularly scheduled salary increases for our members.
Asking for modest salary improvements will pave the way to re-balance priorities at the University:
- In the past two years alone the University has had to make “pay outs” for fired coaches and administrators amounting to more than our combined demands.
- On our campus, the salary packages for the three highest paid employees would pay for more than one year of salary raises for all NTT faculty combined!
