NORMAL, Ill.—United Faculty at Illinois State University, a chapter of University Professionals of Illinois (IFT/AFT-AAUP), continues to battle with university administration for a fair contract.
The union, which represents more than 600 members, held their first rally on Illinois State University’s (ISU) quad Wednesday, Nov. 20, after nine months of contract negotiations. Representing tenure tract faculty, the union demands fair wages, greater campus protections, proper grievance procedures, anti-discrimination protections, and disability accommodations.
The rally filled the quad with chants of “What do we want? A fair contract! When do we want it? Now!” and “Whose got the power? We got the power! What kind of power? Union Power!”
After a short march ending in front of Hovey Hall, ISU’s administrative building, members of United Faculty entered to deliver the administration a formal request for mediation. According to Victor Devinatz, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Management and Quantitative Methods and member of the bargaining committee, United Faculty have already contacted a mediator, and they will be available for two of three bargaining sessions in December.
The rest continued outside in a call and response stating they were not going anywhere and were willing to stand out in the cold if it came to that. After their members returned from delivering the formal request to the administration, they thanked students, staff, faculty, and other unions in attendance for coming.
United Faculty at ISU began organizing in May 2021 and faced a real uphill battle at first. According to Dr. Andrew Hartman, a Professor in the Department of History, he was surprised there was little interest in a union when he first started at Illinois State in 2006.
At that time, “professors across campus largely held the belief they did not need a union” due to friendly and faculty-forward university administrations headed by University Presidents like Dr. Al Bowman (2004-13), who was also a professor at ISU since 1978, and Dr. Larry Dietz (2014-2021).
However, recent university administrations led to very few faculty believing the university looks out for them anymore.
Dr. Keith Pluymers, Associate Professor in the Department of History, is a member of the bargaining committee and self-proclaimed committed trade unionist. He has been involved in the organizing effort since the beginning.
According to Pluymers, people have been beaten down over a long time and have been isolated or siloed in their own departments, which made it easy for university administration to convince faculty and workers they were getting a special deal compared to other departments.
Patient, persistent, and empathetic one-one-one conversations with other faculty helped change that narrative and overcame the isolation they found themselves in, leading to their successful organization drive.
Dr. Fusun Akman, a Professor in the Math Department, was involved in organizing before the union took form. ISU’s reckless decisions around COVID-19 brought Akman into organizing as she and her colleagues saw the need for an alternative opening plan.
They wrote letters to administration and spoke at Board of Trustee Meetings, but their words largely fell on deaf ears. That organizing helped morph into what became United Faculty.
The United Faculty’s organizing goes beyond just tenure-track professors. Organizers were, and still are, involved with the non-tenured faculty union (ISUEA), Graduate Workers Union (SEIU 73), the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees unions on campus (AFSCME 1110 & 3236).
United Faculty made it a priority to show solidarity with others as they organized and built up their own union. Showing up for each other is what matters to Pluymers and the United Faculty, and they’ve doing just that.
“There can be a lot of divisions on a campus, there can be a lot of divisions between workers; it can be hard to overcome those, but the way to overcome those is through real tangible displays of solidarity. Showing up is what counts.” This is especially important at a place like ISU, where there are 11 different locals with staggered contract expiration dates.
It still took nearly two years of organizing for the United Faculty to fully form. Once certified by the Illinois Labor Relations Board on Jan. 6, 2024, they quickly entered their first bargaining session on Feb. 28.
While they made headway, one of the largest sticking points in negotiations – as might be expected – has been economic issues. Professors at ISU are some of the lowest paid among their peers at similar institutions. According to the union, 90% of professors are paid less than the regional average, and 95% of professors are paid less than the average Illinois public university professor.
Further, administration’s salaries, on average, increased 18.8% over the past five years, while faculty salaries only increased 10.1%, all while prices have jumped about 25%.
The backdrop for ISU’s refusal to provide economic proposals is the university’s Resilience, Innovation, Sustainability, Excellence (RISE) taskforce and initiative. RISE, initiated by President Tarhule, aims to critically examine and better the university’s finances in preparation for the expected demographic, and therefore financial, cliff universities across the nation are expecting to face in the next few years, particularly in the Midwest.
The RISE taskforce, however, identifies several key issues the university faces. For example, ISU only receives 6% of state appropriations despite teaching 11% of Illinois’ public university students.
Additionally, state appropriations accounted for 30% of ISU’s budget in 2005 while 24% came from tuition. Now, tuition funds 45% of the total budget, and state appropriation only provides 14%, which shifts the financial burden to students through the need for continued high enrollment and higher tuition costs.
Additionally, other public universities in Illinois have already seen significantly smaller class sizes, such as at Western Illinois University.
However, United Faculty and workers across campus question how dire the straits are that ISU finds itself in. Presented as an effort to promote good governance and future financial stability, RISE came with a freeze to merit pay increases campus-wide (limited essentially to cost of living adjustments), 2% budget cuts, and presidential approval for any new or back-filled positions quickly creating a sense of confusion due to conflicting messages.
Is RISE simply a safety precaution, or has the university already dug itself into a hole? Additionally, despite supposedly knowing of this pending financial hardship, President Tarhule gladly accepted a $70,000 raise when he moved from Interim University President to permanent University President only months before announcing the taskforce.
When asked about the RISE taskforce and the supposed fiscal cliff, United Faculty remain skeptical at best. They have called it “austerity measures that seem disconnected from their own publicly available financial records.”
According to Plyumers, United Faculty requested the mathematical assumptions behind the administration’s calculations, but they have yet to receive an answer. Plyumers continued, “One of the good things about being in an education union is that we have a lot of people with a lot of expertise, and we made a demand that they show their work. Right now, we’re getting a number, but we don’t know where that number came from, whether it’s accurate, whether it’s inaccurate, whether there was a mistake in calculations, whether we disagree with any of the assumptions. We just don’t know… They’ve been talking plenty about economic issues outside of the barging table; it’s time to talk economic at the bargaining table.”
Part of the skepticism also comes from what faculty see and have experienced. Akman points to the record enrollment numbers ISU has now and has had for the past several years. Incoming classes are so large they’re forced to convert lounges into dorm rooms while converting doubles into triples, and triples into quads.
Other faculty remarked they’ve been putting incoming students, primarily freshmen, into lounges since they were here in 2002. Akman remarks, “We keep inviting students, but we’re not taking care of them…. There is no need for austerity.”
Despite the university’s lack of economic proposals and RISE taskforce boogieman, United Faculty remain optimistic that administration will present their proposals soon, especially as they’ve requested mediation.
Akman hopes the administration will come back to the bargaining table with economic proposals before mediation starts. “They will have to pay for mediation, so we are hoping they will see the light and come to the table and finally we will have some good faith proposals.”
Devinatz was a rank-and-file organizer with the Teamsters for a Democratic Union long before joining the bargaining committee for United Faculty. His academic focus in labor relations, human resource management, and conflict management/dispute resolution also brings a unique perspective to the bargaining table.
He believed there was a good turnout for the rally with a lot of spirit and energy among faculty and supporters that will send a message to the administration. He says his research in the past helping prepare proposals for the Teamsters has brought a level of familiarity and preparation to the bargaining table, despite this being the first time he served on a bargaining committee.
United Faculty’s demands go beyond immediate salary needs. Akman wants to see a real grievance policy put in place. “Without a proper grievance proposal, the contract is worth nothing and the administration is still insisting certain things are not grievable, like nondiscrimination. Many other unions have these articles, we are not asking for the moon.”
Hartman would like to see more resources for research. “We are expected to research, write, and publish, yet our research budgets are leave time. Our budgets for travel and these types are things are much worse than universities that have the same kind of research expectations.”
For Pluymers, classroom safety is a major concern. “I want to point to a win we already got; we got a memorandum of understanding that there will be locks on classroom doors within a fixed period of time after we ratify the contract. As too many people working in education know, issues like school shoots are a tragic feature of the education sector right now, in K-12 and higher ed.
“By getting a win on this, we used our power, in bargaining, to get something that doesn’t just help our members, it helps to protect our students, it helps to protect staff, it helps protect visitors to this campus.”
Despite the challenges, United Faculty overall remain optimistic and are looking forward to their future bargaining sessions. “When we use our union power to work not just for ourselves but for everyone, that’s a part of the way we build solidarity, that we build up for the kind of love we saw here today.” United Faculty’s negotiations resumed Monday, Nov. 25.
For more information, follow United Faculty on their Facebook and Instagram pages, visit their website, and sign their petition for updates.
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