This week’s bargaining session began with a detailed discussion of both sides’ proposals on “Personnel Files”. This portion of the contract will govern the material that can be placed in each of our personnel files, relationship of these materials with evaluation procedures and how our work at the University is documented.

We want to ensure that all NTTs have access to their personnel files, that materials placed in these files are related only to a faculty member’s work at the University, and that the content placed in and the administration of personnel files conform with the Illinois Personnel Records Review Act (820 ILCS 40). The administration team showed some flexibility when we asked for more precise and detailed language, but we were not able to reach an agreement in this first discussion of the topic.

We also discussed our proposal on “Evaluations.” Previously, the administration team asserted that they did not consider this a suitable topic for a collective bargaining agreement—they reiterated this again this week. They consider Provost Communications (specifically #25 and #26) sufficient and comprehensive on the issue of evaluations.

Our team pushed for consistent and well-publicized procedures, directed by Departments and with input from NTTs, in order to put in place evaluations that actually matter for our members and their professional development and advancement. Provost Communications #25 and #26 are recommendation documents that only deal cursorily with Instructors and Lecturers, who comprise a large part of our membership. Further, many Departments have no evaluation procedures in place and have made no moves to create them. We collected information from members on this topic, some of which we shared in anonymized form with the administration team.

We agreed to re-visit this topic at a future bargaining session. The next bargaining session is planned for July 15 at 1:30pm. The topics will be a second discussion of the brief preamble we have proposed for the “Purpose” article, as well as the grievance proposal. Please get in touch with our lead negotiator Kay Emmert (ake153@hotmail.com) or with communications chair Dorothee Schneider (communicationsloc.6546@gmail.com) if you would like to participate.

The summer has begun in earnest, but your bargaining team stayed right on track, working on our collective bargaining agreement with the representatives of the University administration. Bargaining resumed on June 10, two weeks after the IL Supreme Court upheld our union’s recognition. “You are now the exclusive representative of these people…” lead negotiator Leslie Arvan acknowledged at the beginning of the meeting. The Administration’s team offered a purpose clause that incorporated some of our proposal on this topic. We signed a tentative agreement on the savings clause, which maintains the validity of a union contract even if parts of it are later invalidated by the law.

While collaboration was possible on this relatively straightforward clause, much tougher topics lay ahead, as much of the rest of the meeting showed. Time was taken up by discussing the union’s proposal on synchronizing work obligations with the academic calendar of the University. We reached no agreement on this topic but Arvan stated optimistically that “we were close” to settling contract language on personnel records, physical environment and union rights. No evidence was offered to support this assessment.

In the upcoming sessions, on June 21 and in July we’ll continue to tackle the non-discrimination clause and the “purpose” of our collective bargaining agreement, as well as begin the need for evaluation procedures.

If you would like to get involved in our bargaining team or if you would like more information about our proposals, let us know! Contact Kay Emmert, (ake153@hotmail.com).