Despite threats that they will lose their health insurance or see their foreign-born colleagues deported, faculty, staff and instructors at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) are braving blustery winds and below-freezing temperatures to keep the picket lines strong.  The union, a chapter of 550 affiliated with the University Professionals of Illinois/IFT/AFT, has been on strike since Nov. 19. The university, located on the North side of Chicago, serves 12,000 students.

On Dec. 2, the picketers got a major boost when AFT president Edward J. McElroy arrived with a $1,100 contribution for the NEIU strike fund, raised from those attending the AFT national collective bargaining conference at the Robert M. Healey Center outside Chicago. Some of the participants, who come from 23 state federations and locals, plan to join UPI on the picket line on Dec. 3.

Two federal mediators are working with the two sides, but bargaining sessions are few and far between. At meetings on Nov. 23 and Nov. 30, university negotiators came to the table empty handed and wouldn't discuss the union bargaining team's new proposals. The next negotiation is set for Dec. 8; the semester ends Dec. 15.

At issue are salaries, which average at the very bottom for all public university faculty in the state, and workload increases. The university has acknowledged a problem with salary compression and instructor pay inequities, yet is determined to stick with a salary increase formula that skirts a solution.

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."

The striking workers have been buoyed by the support they have received from students and the labor community. A group of student activists formed Students for Faculty Rights and Quality Education in September, says one of its founders, senior Robin Matthies, a sociology major. The group hoped to help avert a strike, but now that it is under way the student government has passed a resolution supporting the faculty. Students are participating on the picket line.

On Nov. 29 at a union meeting attended by hundreds, members heard from Illinois AFL-CIO president Margaret Blackshere, Chicago Federation of Labor secretary-treasurer Tim Leahy and IFT president and AFT vice president James Dougherty. This is the second AFT faculty strike in Chicago this fall. The Cook County College Teachers Union/AFT held a three-week strike that ended Nov. 8. [Barbara McKenna]

December 2, 2004