More than 500 faculty and professional staff and 12,000 students at Northeastern Illinois University returned to class Dec. 9, the day after overwhelmingly ratifying a new contract. The settlement for the faculty and staff, represented by the NEIU chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois/AFT, was achieved with the intervention of a state legislator, the Rev. James T. Meeks. The deal came together after a dramatic 11th-hour infusion of $400,000, given by an anonymous donor who was soon revealed to be Daniel L. Goodwin, chairman of the NEIU board of trustees.

Goodwin's gift, which will be paid out in $100,000 installments over the life of the four-year contract, enabled both sides to sign off on a salary package.  It provides an increase of 3.5 percent each year to cover cost-of-living raises and to address two salary problems: pay inequities for instructors who are the lowest paid in the state and salary compression created as new faculty were hired at "market rates," leaving behind long-term faculty who had for years received zero or below-cost-of-living raises.

The settlement ended a strike that began Nov. 19 and came in the nick of time for students as the end of the semester neared. A number of students approached Meeks, a state senator and pastor, and asked him to help; Meeks had similarly intervened in negotiations in November between the Cook County College Teachers Union/AFT and the City Colleges of Chicago.

Meeks convinced both parties to dispense with the federal mediators and change their negotiating formula, which had produced no progress for weeks. Both sides agreed that years of higher education funding cuts by the state Legislature and level funding last year created the crisis for the university, says UPI statewide president Sue Kaufman, who assisted the union in negotiations.

Compounding this was the Legislature's decision to institute a "truth-in-tuition" policy requiring that tuition for incoming freshmen would not change for four years. Restrictions on raising tuition may work at residential schools, but not at nonresidential schools, Kaufman adds, since at urban campuses like NEIU, students don't attend full-time and don't graduate in four years.

Goodwin's gift made the difference between an increase of 3 percent and 3.5 percent. In addition, the union was able to hold off a demand that faculty increase their workload. Finally, faculty will receive back pay for the weeks they were on strike, and the money will be in their hands before Christmas.

"To see both sides committed not just to settling the strike but to seeing that employees were well-looked after just speaks volumes about the level of respect in the room," says Meeks.

The state senator has introduced a bill in the Legislature, H.B. 750, to provide a $500 million boost to higher education funding in the state. He is hoping to drum up enough support to guarantee an override to the governor's promised veto. [Barbara McKenna]

December 9, 2004