Faced with a management team unwilling to budge on salary and health insurance takebacks, the 210 full-time faculty at Harper College in Palatine, Ill., are set to go out on strike Oct. 9. The union filed notice of intent to strike with the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board two weeks ago, as required by law, and wrapped up a do-or-die bargaining session with a federal mediator on Sept. 30.

The union, the Harper College Faculty Senate, is affiliated with the Cook County College Teachers Union/IFT. Management is asking the faculty to absorb a larger portion of rising health insurance costs by lifting the employer/employee cap on the current 80 percent/20 percent share of the costs.

The employer also wants to fold in the cost of promotions into the base salary offer. What this amounts to, says CCCTU president Norm Swenson, is an across-the-board increase of 3.3 percent, not 5 percent as the college claims it is offering. The union is asking for a 6 percent raise.

There are other issues at stake in this strike, adds Swenson, such as the right of due process, fair evaluations and full hearings in disciplinary matters. While the college says it will call upon its stable of 500 non-union part-timers to fill in for the full-time teachers, those part-timers report to department chairs who are in of the CCCTU unit.

Construction workers engaged in campus building projects have promised to honor the picket lines.  [Barbara McKenna]

[October 8, 2002]