Faculty and staff at Northeastern Illinois University went on strike Nov. 19 after a 16-hour negotiation session failed to produce progress on issues of workload and pay. The unit of 550 is a chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois, a statewide union affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the AFT.

Members have been working without a contract since Aug. 31; their negotiating team has been bargaining since May. The university, located on the north side of Chicago, serves 12,000 students.

Faculty salaries at NEIU are the lowest among comparable institutions in the region, and in recent years, raises have not kept up with inflation nor the cost of living. While administrator pay increases have averaged between 29 percent and 40 percent since 2000, says NEIU UPI chapter spokeswoman Anita Thomas, faculty raises have been below 5 percent. The problem has been aggravated by a provost who has hired new faculty at "market" rates, setting up instant inequities and salary compression acceptable to no one.

The university has acknowledged this reality at the bargaining table but has misrepresented what it is offering as a solution. Its actual proposal, after equity equalizations, would provide faculty with less than 2 percent raises. In a letter mailed to all faculty, the NEIU president claimed the university had offered raises of 5 percent. This communication, a violation of state labor law, spurred the union to file an unfair labor practice claim.

The university has been unwilling to do what's necessary to achieve equity for the faculty, says Sue Kaufman, UPI statewide president. The conflict is "about NEIU's need to reprioritize its funding if they are going to maintain quality higher education to a very diverse student body."

Under a new disclosure law in Illinois, universities have been required to publish their expenditures for the past two academic years. The union analyzed budgets and actual expenses and found approximately $5 million budgeted but not spent on instructional activities. "Where is the leftover spending?" asks UPI local president Ed Hunt. "If the administration had actually spend as much on instructional services as they budgeted, we might not be on strike right now."

The university is also demanding that faculty shift to a new credit unit workload system.  Currently, faculty teach between 21 to 27 credit units; the administration wants to increase that lower number to 24.

This strike is the second to roil the city's higher education community in the past month. Teachers at City Colleges of Chicago, represented by the Cook County College Teachers Union, another AFT local, shut down the seven colleges of the system for three weeks in a strike over teaching workloads and health insurance premiums.  In both strikes, student support for their teachers has been strong. [Barbara McKenna]

November 24, 2004