Non-Tenure Faculty Coalition, University of Illinois
The News-Gazette has covered our planned vote on strike authorization.
“About 500 University of Illinois faculty members who aren’t part of the tenure system plan to take a strike authorization vote next week. Members of the Non-Tenure Faculty Coalition Local 6546 say two sessions with federal mediator Conrad Bowling this week failed to advance negotiations with the university, and he isn’t available to meet again until April 27.”
Lining the hallway to greet Board of Trustees as they enter their meeting March 16, 2016
Christina De Angelo (left), Instructor of Spanish, delivered 600+ postcards to the Board of Trustees. The secretary thanked us for our professionalism. That’s right, we’re professionals. #faircontractnow
5 times we asked to address the Board, 5 times they said no! Don’t silence faculty! — with Sara Miriam.
Bright and early Wednesday morning dozens of NTFC members gathered at the Illini Union to greet members of the Board of the Trustees as they entered their March meeting. While the BOT was in closed session, we marched silently through the quad, returning to the room for the open comment period.
Repeatedly silenced by the Administration, who have “no interest” in our work conditions, we took silence as today’s theme. We stood in silent protest in the meeting until the Secretary of the Board took delivery of over 600 postcards signed by members and supporters, explaining why NTFC needs a contract, now. Wednesday’s action was symbolic and strong, but don’t expect us to fade away quietly–chances are good that next time, we will make some noise.
As we enter into mediation at the end of the month, we will be holding silent marches, as well as tabling, to inform and involve faculty, staff, students and the community in our fight for a fair contract.
We submitted a poster to the Admin today representing 1,084 signatures from non-tenure faculty, undergrads, GEO members, tenure track faculty and community members.
Your solidarity makes us stronger. We are glowing as we head into tough weeks ahead in our fight for a #faircontractnow. — with A.k. Emmert.
Thursday marked 411 days without a contract and our 21st bargaining session. Progress continued from last session–we signed tentative agreements on the Health and Safety and Union Activity/Union Membership articles. These are important parts of our contract because they protect your right to participate in your union and strengthen the health and safety provisions that the University has to comply with under State and Federal laws.
We also discussed the articles about discipline and dismissal, and access to personnel files. Our discussion of the latter continues to be held up by the administration’s insistence that we could either dispute the (wrongful) inclusion of something in a personnel file through the grievance procedure or by pursuing legal remedies granted to us by state law. They want us to give up one of these avenues in favor of the other. They want us to bargain away our rights. We should not have “two bites at the apple,” as their lead negotiator called it.
On the Discipline and Dismissal proposal, we are waiting on some clarification from Administration about language we found problematic for establishing the right to just cause and arbitration.
At this session, we also demanded to bargain the impact of healthcare changes proposed at the state level that were brought to light by the clerical/staff worker’s union negotiations (AFSCME Local 3700) here on campus. We will contact you soon with more information and a survey for all bargaining unit members to inform the bargaining team how to proceed on this issue at the table.
Though we made continued progress in today’s session, we must keep up the pressure on the Administration to ensure this pace. Mark your calendars now for Thursday, December 10 (Reading Day), when we will hold our Work-In at the Illini Union Courtyard Cafe.
Want to see negotiations first hand? Our next session is on December 2nd 8:30am-11:30am. Contact our lead negotiator, Kay Emmert, if you will be attending at ake153@hotmail.com.
Today was our twentieth bargaining session and, despite delays and a lengthy caucus, we also had some successes. We signed a tentative agreement on our grievance article and we received the first “wage proposal” from the admin. team. The grievance article is a cornerstone of any union contract and we are happy to see this chapter concluded for now.
The admin. wage proposal is a first step in what we expect will be a longer process of discussing “economic proposals” in the next weeks and months.
We think these steps would not have been possible without the successful teach-in and rally on the Quad last week. Thanks to so many of you who participated. There really is nothing like showing up and raising one’s voice — bargaining is strengthened in so many ways by your activism.
