Know-Your-Contract

Notes from the 10th Session 05/17

We are excited to report the progress we have made. We have strong concerns about the upcoming session, but first, the progress.

Today, we signed five tentative agreements.

A tentative agreement means that both sides have agreed to the language within specific pieces of the contract. Once all of the pieces have tentative agreements, then everything is assembled as a whole and sent to the membership for a vote. An overview of the tentative agreements reached today is included at the end of this post.

So what’s left? And why are we concerned?

What’s left is Wages. We are concerned because their initial response to our wage proposal rejected everything. They want to leave all wage decisions to their unilateral discretion.

Essentially, they want us to give up our right to negotiate wages, and it’s going to be difficult to persuade them otherwise if we don’t have members in the room.

So, two weeks from today, we need to show-up and show them–

We Have a Say in Our Pay

Next Session:
May 31st (No session will be held next Friday, May 24th)
Illinois Fire Service Institute (Digital signs within the building will alert you to the room.)
9am-5pm

Yes, the next session is an all-day session. But remember, you can arrive and leave at-will.

Contact our Lead Negotiator, Kay Emmert ake153[@]hotmail.com with any questions you have.

Overview of the Tentative Agreements Reached on 05/17/19

The five tentative agreements reached today provide language like, but not limited to, the following:

Side Letter

Within 2 years, all departments will define full time work for their positions. This ensures that Extra work = Extra Pay

Article IX: Benefits and Leaves

Greater clarification for when benefits end
Retirees can gain library privileges by applying for a 0% appointment

Article X: Appointment, Reappointment, and Promotion

Multi-year contracts for the Teaching and Clinical Associate and Full Professor lines

Article IV: Union Membership & Activity

Access to more complete membership data so that we can better enforce our contract.
Presentation time at New Faculty Orientation

Memorandum of Understanding

Members who were misclassified as Visiting will have the years in which they were misclassified counted towards their years of service

Notes from the 9th session 5/10

The session began after a lengthy wait for the Administration’s Bargaining Team to finish final changes to their proposal on a package of IV: Benefits and Leaves; Article X: Appointment, Reappointment and Promotion, Article XI: Hours of Work and Commitment, the Side Letter, and also a separate Memorandum of Understanding resolving the past misclassification of several of our bargaining unit members. This package includes items like, but not limited to–

Multi-year contracts for the professorial track
Departments being required to define full-time work so that extra work = extra pay
Retirement access to the library

For the first time the Administration presented some movement on multi-year contracts for some classifications of the professional tracks. We were encouraged that the Administration has begun to address this important issue, however we’re still working to make the eligibility requirements more reasonable. One concern is the complete exclusion of Research Assistant-Associate-Full Professors. So if you are one of the many professorial faculty in unit and multi-year contracts is important to you, consider coming to our next bargaining session. Our members showing up in the room is making a clear difference to the movement we are seeing at the bargaining table!

By the end of the session, the Union responded with counter-proposals to all five articles. One of the most serious outstanding issues we’re seeing resistance on is making sure that our members have a voice when the Administration wants to change how much work counts as full time. Setting workload expectations is a basic topic for collective bargaining that the Administration wants continued unilateral control over, and without a voice in setting these working conditions, too many non-tenure-track faculty see extra work without extra pay.

While there are still some serious concerns about what the Administration is offering, we are hopeful that we can reach resolution on some or all of these issues at our next session. But it depends on everyone doing their part. As the semester draws to a close, and some of our members leave for the summer–it is more important now than ever that you show up to bargaining if we hope to settle this contract before the Fall.

Next Session:

Friday, May 17th

9:00am – 12:00pm (you can arrive and leave at-will)

Illinois Fire Service Institute { map } (Digital signs within the building will alert you to the room.)

Notes from the 8th Session 5/03

The session began with the University’s Bargaining Team presenting their proposal on a package of Article X: Appointment, Reappointment and Promotion, Article XI: Hours of Work and Commitment, and the Side Letter. This package includes items like, but not limited to–

Multi-year contracts for the professorial track
Departments being required to define full-time work so that extra work = extra pay

We came into the session hopeful. After many hypothetical conversations with their bargaining team, it seemed we were close to settling at least two articles, and possibly as many as five today. We thought NTFC and the University’s Bargaining Team left last week on the same page.

However, despite all we have given up in order to settle these articles, the administration’s proposals did not provide solutions for our members. For example, they have rejected multi-year contracts outright. They also continue to provide language that allows departments to avoid defining full-time work, which means departments can demand additional work from members without paying them for it.

We continue to remind them that NTFC exists to to protect all members, across all departments, and that working conditions are a big part of what we are here to protect.

Next week, come hear for yourself if they’ve listened. Because at next week’s session, everything is on the table, including Wages.

Contact our Lead Negotiator, Kay Emmert ake153[@]hotmail.com to let her know you will be there or with any bargaining questions you have.

Next Session:
Friday, May 10th
9:00am – 12:00pm (you can arrive and leave at-will)
Illinois Fire Service Institute (Digital signs within the building will alert you to the room.)

Notes from the 7th Session 4/26

The session began with the Administration’s Bargaining Team presenting their counter on Article IV: Benefits and Leaves. We then broke for caucus.

The sticking point in this article remains –
Granting library access to retired NTTs

Right now, the Administration’s team is proposing that retired NTT’s access the library through a process that would be tied to a specific project, require department and upper administration approval, and need to be renewed each year.

We are asking that they create a retired NTT designation so that more and continuing labor is not required from our members, individual departments, or the administration.

We’ll find out next session which solution they support.

In fact, next week is a BIG one.

There is a strong possibility that tentative agreements could be reached on articles that would decide the following and more for our next contract:

Extra pay for extra work
Salary raises for promotion
Retirement access to the library

This time of year is packed, but we need people in the room.

When their side sees members in the room, they know our membership supports our stances, which helps them move closer to an agreement that most benefits us.

Contact our Lead Negotiator, Kay Emmert, ake153[@]hotmail.com to let her know you will be there or with any bargaining questions you have.

Next Session:
Friday, May 3rd
9:00am – 12:00pm (you can arrive and leave at-will)
Place is currently TBA, but we will let our members know as soon as we do

Notes from the 6th Session 4/19

The session began with us presenting our counter on Article IV: Union Membership and Union Activity. The Administration’s Bargaining Team then presented their counter on Article IX: Benefits and Leaves.

A great amount of progress was made towards settling both of these articles. We are optimistic that an agreement could be reached by next Friday.

As a reminder, one of the things we are fighting for in Article IX is retirement access to the library system. A moment of note from today’s session was when member Dorothee Schneider, who is retiring this year, was able to better clarify the process by which retirees could access library resources.

This proved a concrete example of how important it is for members to attend bargaining sessions. Dorothee understands this concern because she is experiencing this concern.

There might well be parts of this contract you experience and understand better than anyone else. Be there to make sure your concerns are clear and accurate to all.

Next session, we could begin bargaining Article X: Appointment, Reappointment and Promotion. In this article we are fighting for things like-

Guaranteed salary increases for promoted members
Extra pay for extra work demanded of members

Is your required workload ambiguous or ever-changing? Have you been asked to perform extra duties without compensation?

Attend the next session and tell us about it. And, if you can’t make it in person, be sure to contact our Lead Negotiator, Kay Emmert, ake153[@]hotmail.com with your story.

Next Session:
Friday, April 26th
9:00am – 12:00pm (you can arrive and leave at-will)
Illinois Fire Service Institute (Digital signs within the building will alert you to the room.)