News

07 Sep Happy Labor Day from UIC United Faculty

Dear Fellow Union Members,

Happy Labor Day to you, and all the working people in your lives! We hope you may take a moment to reflect on the meaning of this holiday honoring everyday workers, and the labor we all do that keeps our world running. Especially now, as thousands of our colleagues in the Nurses and Staff unions at UIC are preparing to strike for their lives over safety concerns, a recognition of labor’s role in society, and our collective power when we organize, is all the more critical.

Our own collective actions, meanwhile, have ensured that the vast majority of faculty are able to teach remotely if you wish to, and in the ways that work best for the unique situation of your discipline, and your students. Our contract has also ensured that even as other universities use the pandemic as an excuse to cut wages or furlough faculty, our members will still enjoy the fruits of a 4% raise pool this year.

We also want to remind you that we are still collecting donations for our Mutual Aid Fund, to help support colleagues who have lost, or may lose their jobs and health insurance during the COVID pandemic. We’ve raised over $14,000 dollars out of our $20,000 goal, and have already distributed more than $12,000 to members who have lost their jobs in the worst academic job market most of us have ever experienced. You can donate via our GoFundMe page or by writing a check and mailing to our office at:

UIC—United Faculty
1016 W Jackson Blvd
Chicago, Illinois 60607

On a final note, we hope that above all, today you remember that our union is strong because of members like you. Whether you are an elected union officer, or a dues paying member, your support makes our work, and all the union’s achievements, possible. Labor Day is, in every sense, your holiday, and you’ve earned it!

Solidarity,
UIC United Faculty

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We issue regular updates via email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and on our website. We encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. If you want to contribute your story, pictures, video, or other content related to the activities of the union, email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com. With your support, we are making UIC an even SAFER place to work and learn!

03 Sep UIC Staff and Nurses Prepared to Strike on 9/12

• INA, SEIU Members Authorize Strikes: Our colleagues in the UIC nurses and staff unions, INA and SEIU, showed extraordinary resolve in recent votes authorizing their unions to strike over stalled contract negotiations.

• Scholar Strike Over Racial Justice: A call has gone out for a decentralized “strike” by scholars in support of racial justice next week. Work stoppages are not permitted by our contract, but we encourage you to support the movement in other ways as you are able.

• Raises Are Going Through: Faculty now appear to be receiving raises out of the 4% merit, compression, and equity pools guaranteed by our contract.

• IP Rights for Spring NOT protected: Admin has given an October 1 deadline to sign up for ION and Coursebuilder support for Spring classes, but have NOT guaranteed faculty intellectual property rights for courses developed with this assistance.

UIC Nurses and Staff are Prepared to Strike for Fair Contracts
In an all-too-familiar pattern that we’ve called out during our own past bargaining efforts, UIC admin has once again pushed two campus unions, representing nurses and university staff, to the brink of a work stoppage. INA, the nurses union, and SEIU, the union representing hospital and university staff, have both negotiated past the expiration of their contracts with no sign that Admin is willing to agree to a fair deal. This adds to more than a dozen examples in just the past few years that tell us UIC Admin will not agree to a fair contract without a strike, or the threat of one.

In response to admin’s failure to negotiate a fair contract, 1000 INA nurses voted to strike two weeks ago and have just set a strike date of Saturday, September 12th. They have expressed ongoing concerns over patient and worker safety due to understaffing and failure to provide enough PPE for all workers. The union will ensure that patients continue to receive adequate care, reducing only non-essential services in the event of a strike.

SEIU has expressed similar concerns, around lack of PPE, inadequate stocks of cleaning supplies, and critical staffing shortages that pre-date the COVID pandemic, which has only amplified the urgency of these health and safety demands. Yesterday, 94% of their 3,000 members voted to strike, and they delivered their notice that they’ll stop work on Monday, September 14th.

Both SEIU and INA have suffered significant numbers of seriously ill members, as well as several COVID-related deaths since the spring.

UICUF will be providing financial support to each group’s strike funds, as well as taking other actions to support their efforts to win a fair contract as appropriate. We invite you to offer whatever personal support, be it monetary, creative, showing up to rallies, or simply amplifying social media. SEIU has also posted a support form you can fill out as an individual.

Scholar Strike
Our affiliate organization, AAUP, recently highlighted a call for a Scholar Strike to bring attention to racial injustice and police violence. While an actual concerted work stoppage is not permitted within the bounds of the UIC United Faculty contract, we do strongly encourage our faculty to engage in other actions next Tuesday, 9/8, and Wednesday, 9/9, that support the cause. You can email Scholarstrike@gmail.com to discuss ways you can help even though we cannot legally strike at this time.

Raises and IP Rights for Spring Courses
Some of you may have already been informed of pay raises going through for the year. As a reminder, UIC United Faculty’s contract, which we fought for to the brink of our own work stoppage just last year, guarantees a combined 4% in raise pools (2% merit, 2% compression/equity) each year. Amid much grumbling by our admin counterparts in impact bargaining this year, they acknowledged that regardless of COVID-related cuts, they are required to honor the contract. This is, of course, why having a legally enforceable contract is so important, and is why we, and our colleagues in the grad worker, nurses, and staff unions, have all been willing to take the exceptional steps of authorizing or initiating a strike to win them.

Meanwhile, ongoing concerns around our own impact bargaining process linger. While we’ve elaborated on immediate health and safety issues recently, we also remain concerned about durable intellectual property rights for those building courses with the help of ION and course-builder assistance from the university. UIC admin chose to narrowly guarantee IP protections for fall semester, framing the action as waiving their right to ownership of your work. They have studiously ignored UICUF calls to make this provision protecting faculty IP rights permanent, or even to extend it to the Spring semester.

With an apparent October 1 deadline to accept ION/Course Builder assistance for Spring, we want to warn all faculty considering these options that your IP rights are NOT currently guaranteed. We therefore must caution against accepting these forms of aid unless or until you receive confirmation in writing that all content being created will remain yours exclusively. Absent this, we must assume that the university intends to use, modify, and/or reproduce your work as admin sees fit.

As ever, if you have questions or concerns around any of these issues, email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com.

Solidarity
UIC United Faculty

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We issue regular updates via email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and on our website. We encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. If you want to contribute your story, pictures, video, or other content related to the activities of the union, email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com. With your support, we are making UIC an even SAFER place to work and learn!

21 Aug Press Release: UIC United Faculty Issues Statement on Campus Safety

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 21, 2020

CONTACTS
Robert Johnston, UICUF Chief Steward
773-610-1442 robert.douglas.johnston@gmail.com 

Aaron Krall, UICUF Executive Vice-President
312-351-4172 aaronkrall@gmail.com 

Charitianne Williams, UICUF Communications Chair
773-531-3265 charitianne@gmail.com 

UIC United Faculty Issues Statement on Campus Safety
Faculty reject administration’s plan for campus reopening as unsafe.

The UIC United Faculty (UICUF), the union representing tenure and non-tenure track faculty at the University of Illinois@Chicago today issued a statement declaring the plan to return to the UIC campus next week unsafe.

“We do not have confidence that the Administration’s plan will sufficiently provide for a safe reopening,” the statement reads,“ let alone sustain a healthy open campus for the fall semester.”

The statement also discusses frequency testing and contact tracing on campus which falls short of the rates necessary to identify and contain a campus outbreak.

UICUF has been in impact bargaining with campus administration since March and has filed several Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges over administration intransigence and failure to negotiate at the bargaining table. This reflects the reality of several faculty unions across Illinois, who have filed ULPs against administrative bargaining practices during COVID-19 impact negotiations. Most recently, Western and Eastern Illinois faculty unions (UPI Local 4100) filed ULPs for similar situations. Western has been granted an injunction to delay opening, while this appeal to the law  appears to have forced a tentative agreement at Eastern.

The UICUF statement also coincides with a strike authorization vote taken by University of Illinois Health nurses over working conditions and access to PPE. Additionally, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) staff at UIC plan on taking a strike vote later in September over UIC’s failure to provide adequate safeguards for staff and bargain in good faith at the negotiation table. In the statement, UICUF acknowledges these issues as central to the lack of confidence in the plan to reopen, which depends heavily on the labor of SEIU members to keep our campus and community safe:

“We are troubled by the lack of confidence members of the support and custodial staff have with the current plan and their ability to carry it out to an adequate degree with the personnel and equipment at their disposal.  We aren’t prepared to risk their lives.” 

The UIC United Faculty (Local 6456) represents all full-time tenure and non-tenure track faculty at UIC. UICUF is affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professionals.  

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21 Aug UIC United Faculty Statement on Campus Health, Safety, and Re-Opening

UIC United Faculty is eager to serve our students and effectively engage in the incredibly important project of education. That said, we have no confidence that the campus is reasonably safe. We do not have confidence that the Administration’s plan will sufficiently provide for a safe reopening, let alone sustain a healthy open campus for the fall semester.  The UIC administration is relying on Illinois Board of Higher Education recommendations that were not endorsed by faculty experts on the committee, who have issued an alternative ‘best practices’ report.

• We are troubled by the lack of confidence members of the support and custodial staff have with the current plan and their ability to carry it out to an adequate degree with the personnel and equipment at their disposal.  We aren’t prepared to risk their lives.

• We are concerned that the current testing and tracing program will be insufficient to stop an outbreak on campus from spreading widely and back into the various communities where we and our students work and live.

It appears that the current plan meets only minimum standards, with decisions prioritizing opening rather than saving lives and preventing illness–which should take precedence over all other concerns. We should never put our students, staff, faculty, and all of their families at unnecessary risk.

20 Aug Despite Lingering Concerns, Faculty Voices DID Make A Difference

• You Made a Difference: Despite ongoing issues, our actions as a united faculty dramatically reduced the number of people who will be on-campus and at risk this fall, won compensation for (some) faculty this summer, and secured faculty discretion in course delivery/recording.
• Safety Concerns Still Loom: As classes begin this fall UICUF remains deeply concerned about campus safety, and significant policy differences remain unresolved with Admin.
• UICUF Continues to Fight for Faculty: Whether you have individual or collective concerns, our union is ready to continue the work of representing you and making UIC an even SAFER place to work and learn. Email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com to reach a union representative.

Union Pressure DID Make a Difference
As we prepare to resume classes next week, its important to recognize that our union, through the vocal support of our membership, DID make a difference in the shape of the coming fall term. Many unilateral administration policies on everything from how and where we teach, to whether faculty got paid for off-contract summer prep work, were overturned or altered when we raised our voices together to demand better. We didn’t get everything we wanted, and much remains in policy-by-email form rather than signed agreements, but we hope you’ll agree that the following achievements would not have been possible without the collective actions of our members:

Ongoing Safety Concerns and Policy Disagreements
Unfortunately, even with these changes, UICUF continues to have many concerns about the safety of on-campus work and learning. They began with the lack of transparency on a back-to-campus safety plan, and have only grown with the administration’s broad refusal to include union stakeholders in that planning process. Perhaps our gravest concerns, however, come from the stories of our union colleagues in SEIU and INA, who are currently considering strike votes over their working conditions. The administration’s failure to provide sufficient PPE or even enough disinfectant for custodial workers, the chronic understaffing of custodial ranks that continues despite promises of increased cleaning, and the fact of multiple unreported deaths and fresh infections (including cases reported in academic buildings this week), have been damning revelations to our members.

Last week, finally, an opt-out policy was enacted, giving faculty only 2 working days to act, and coming far too late to be practical for many faculty to use, though many in-person classes had already been cancelled under union pressure. This is only the latest decision in a pattern of the administration walking back their inscrutable on-campus instruction mandates at the last minute, leaving little time for faculty or students to adjust. Even this policy pointedly failed to address on-campus work outside of traditional classrooms, especially for our library faculty.

We want to firmly state that regardless of the administration’s stated opt-out deadline, which has passed, UICUF will support any faculty who wish to opt out of on-campus work for safety reasons. Emails us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com if you want help seeking accommodations.

The Work Continues
Conditions will certainly continue evolving over the coming weeks and months, and our union will continue to make UIC an even SAFER place to work and learn. Whatever your situation, we highly encourage you to engage with your colleagues and with the union through our elected representatives if you have any concerns about COVID or other campus policies this semester.

To all our colleagues, please stay safe as you continue your exceptional work!

Solidarity,
UIC United Faculty

17 Aug Opt-Out of On Campus Duties Before 5pm TOMORROW

• Act NOW to Opt-Out: per an unusual administrative communication this weekend, faculty have until 5pm Tuesday (TOMORROW), to opt-out of on campus teaching.
• “Exceptions” Under Investigation: Despite the broad statement in the email, we’ve heard from some members that their Deans claim this doesn’t apply to them. We are urgently investigating these reported “exceptions,” as well as whether it applies to library duties.
• Safety Remains a Major Concern: UICUF continues to have grave concerns about the safety of on-campus classes. We strongly recommend you request accommodations now if desired.
• Union Support is Available: UICUF will support all requests made, informally or through the grievance procedure if necessary. A written record of your timely request will greatly improve chances of winning accommodations, even if they are initially denied.
• Email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com if you would like help requesting accommodations, or if you have been denied, told you are ineligible, or are uncertain of your eligibility.

An Untimely Email
Faculty members received an unusual email on Saturday, giving everyone very short notice that we may now opt-out of on campus teaching, but also that accommodations must be requested by 5pm CST, Tuesday (TOMORROW). As has become a pattern this summer, UIC’s administration has taken some apparent action on union demands, but only through vague policy emails that leave more questions than they answer, and which arrive so late as to be nearly panic-inducing.

To add to the confusion, we’ve already heard from faculty, especially those in the College of Nursing, that their Dean claims this option does not apply to them. It is also unclear whether this option extends to duties in the Library, or other duties outside of the traditional classroom setting. UICUF is rapidly moving to investigate these issues and will communicate any updates ASAP.

One thing is clear however: if you wish to exercise your right to opt-out of on campus duties, you must do so IMMEDIATELY, regardless of uncertainty or perceived eligibility.

UICUF Will Back Members on Safety Decisions
For reasons we have discussed previously, UICUF remains deeply concerned about the safety of on-campus work, whether it is in a classroom, lab, studio, or in the library. The safety of our community is absolutely paramount, and to that end, we strongly recommend that our members exercise this option if you are in any doubt about your own safety or that of your community.

The union is committed to backing up our members on your decisions, up to and including filing grievances over denied requests for accommodation if necessary. If you want an accommodation, you should submit a written request to your supervisor before the deadline regardless of any uncertainty about eligibility. Even if you expect the request to be denied, a record of your request will improve the chances that we can successfully press your claim.

If you are uncertain about whether you can opt out, you have been told you are not eligible, or your request is denied for any reason, LET US KNOW IMMEDIATELY. We will continue to fight for universal opt-out discretion, both at the university level and for individuals at risk.

In Solidarity
UIC United Faculty

11 Aug UIC Faculty Union Files Unfair Labor Practice Against Administration

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 11, 2020

CONTACTS
Robert Johnston, UICUF Chief Steward
773-610-1442 robert.douglas.johnston@gmail.com

Charitianne Williams, UICUF Communications Chair
773-531-3265 charitianne@gmail.com

UIC Faculty Union Files Unfair Labor Practice Against Administration

Administration has violated its legal obligation to bargain in good faith over changed working conditions.

CHICAGO- The union representing UIC faculty has filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) over a summer compensation program enacted unilaterally by administration while under negotiation at the bargaining table. Rather than following faculty recommendations, the administration stated the money would go only to faculty preparing large online lecture courses for fall, but in fact the distribution of funds appears inconsistent and fraught with error.

This follows a set of ULPs filed simultaneously earlier in the summer for similar actions taken that the union feels have obstructed negotiations. The administration has failed to bargain in good faith over changes in faculty working conditions and the impact on union contracts. Top university officials at UIC have skipped scheduled meetings with faculty union representatives and refused to put agreements in writing.

In March, UIC United Faculty  (UICUF) indicated the intent to bargain over COVID-19 related workplace issues including health and safety, academic freedom, intellectual property, promotion timelines disrupted by the virus, and the reappointment of non-tenure track faculty let go prematurely due to fear of decreased enrollments.

“The health and safety of our members remains the priority,” says Aaron Krall, Executive Vice-President of UICUF and head of the bargaining team.

Trouble at the bargaining table has also prompted an emergency membership meeting this week for union members to discuss confidence in the administration’s plan to return to campus, faculty legal rights if assigned to teach on campus, and possible future actions for the union membership if progress is not made.

“Our concerns are not being addressed,” said Krall. “We worry how many faculty or students must fall ill or die before our demands are taken seriously.”

The UIC United Faculty (Local 6456) represents all full-time tenure and non-tenure track faculty at UIC. UICUF is affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professionals.

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10 Aug Can We Trust Our Administration to Keep Us Safe?

• Low on Trust and Out of Time: UICUF is rapidly losing trust in the administration to protect students, faculty, and staff, as contract negotiations collapse without producing credible answers on health and safety for a campus reopening in just 2 weeks.
• Empty Promises: Admin has suggested they’ll implement increased cleaning, social distancing, and testing/contact tracing, but our staff and nursing union colleagues’ experiences cast deep doubt on their dedication and capacity to carry out these plans.
• Facts on The Ground: SEIU reports ongoing, unacknowledged deaths and severe illnesses over the summer, alongside denied PPE requests, a 50% shortfall in custodial headcount, and a risk assessment process designed to produce denials.
• What Now?: Sign the IFT Higher Ed Council’s demands for safe returns to campus immediately and join us for an all-hands membership meeting Thursday, 3pm.

Where We Are Today
We have no agreements on health and safety. We have no confidence that the administration will return to bargaining in good faith. We have no trust that the administration’s unilateral announcements on safety measures are practical, feasible, or credible. And we have no more time to lose.

Our administration has been offering a master class in projecting confidence this summer, while behind the scenes they’ve done little to ensure a safe return to campus. Rather, they’ve spent this time undermining contractual obligations to bargain that would force them to make meaningful commitments on safety to their stakeholders, including students, faculty, and staff. Last week, with Provost Poser notably absent, they walked back promises of a written memorandum of understanding on agreements reached through negotiations thus far, and attempted to describe the process as being “at impasse”– a term with serious legal ramifications, and, in this case, used improperly.

The administration simultaneously reaffirmed their intention to simply impose conditions under negotiation without reaching an agreement. Their latest move, to drop in-person requirements for certain freshman-oriented classes, exemplifies this kind of decision making, which may sound good but affects barely a handful of the nearly 200 faculty still scheduled to teach in person.

In short, top administrators continue to show us that they have no intention of working with us, even on critical issues of health and safety, with just two weeks before some faculty and many students are forced to return to campus.

Promising More Than They Can Deliver
Meanwhile, a canvas of our union colleagues performing nursing, custodial, maintenance, and staff duties on campus and in the hospital gives us a grim preview of what faculty can expect on August 24th.

People are dying. Many more have gotten sick. SEIU reports that this has been an ongoing phenomenon throughout the summer, despite there being only a skeleton staff working on campus. But our administrators have done little to acknowledge the danger. They’ve also failed to mention that the custodial headcount was 50% below operational requirements before the pandemic began–or that they have been receiving, and denying, demands from hospital staff for PPE since March. Even plans for testing and contact tracing, which were laid out clearly for the Urbana-Champaign Campus, have only been hinted at for UIC, leaving open questions about the will and ability to implement these complex programs in such an alarmingly short time.

Our SEIU (university and hospital staff) and INA (nurses) colleagues are actively preparing for strike votes right now over these issues, and we will provide them with all the support that we can offer. There is little reason to believe that faculty will be treated differently, or that these issues will suddenly disappear with the influx of thousands of people returning to campus this Fall.

Time to Act
We’ve worked diligently to persuade the administration, through collaboration, shared governance, and bargaining, to take our demands for a safe Fall reopening seriously. They’ve casually and negligently squandered these opportunities for discourse. That is why our Representative Assembly, the elected body of faculty representing each college and governing our union, has decided to call an all-members meeting.

We need you, and all of our members, to decide what should come next, and help us make it happen. Join us for our member meeting this Thursday, 8/13, from 3-4:30PM as we discuss how best to keep our members, our students and our campus community safe.

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We issue regular updates via email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and on our website. We encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. If you want to contribute your story, pictures, video, or other content related to the activities of the union, email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com. With your support, we are making UIC an even better place to work and learn!

31 Jul Moving Forward, With Or Without An Agreement

• Objections Disregarded: Provost Poser says she is moving forward with a summer compensation plan, one rejected by our membership, heedless of ongoing negotiations.
• Pattern of Bad Faith Bargaining: This is the latest and loudest gesture in a long pattern of undermining the union’s right to formal bargaining.
• Undercutting Negotiations: Continued unilateral actions by Admin cast serious doubt over further negotiations, leaving policy gaps unclarified ahead of the Fall semester.
• Defending Our Rights: Regardless of bargaining outcomes, UICUF will put its full weight behind defending members’ rights, especially to safety and academic autonomy, and will vigorously support members’ ability to practice these rights.

Degrading Trust and Undermining Negotiations
It is time, and perhaps well past time, to ask how sincere our administration actually is in pursuing ongoing negotiations with the union. Indeed, the latest turn in bargaining has left our team with significantly diminished confidence that any meaningful agreements can be reached before the start of the Fall semester.

In an email yesterday, Provost Poser informed us of her intention to move forward with a plan to narrowly distribute $1 million dollars among roughly four hundred faculty slated to teach large asynchronous classes in the Fall. This plan was resoundingly rejected by a vote of the union membership weeks ago for failing to acknowledge the work of nearly one thousand other faculty members doing similar preparations. Yet with this announcement, Poser declared that it is already “too late” to change course, seemingly acknowledging that once again, implementation was underway even as the administration claimed to be negotiating with the union.

To be clear, these faculty deserve this money–and much more–for all their work well beyond contractual norms. So do all the other faculty in our bargaining unit putting in the time and effort to craft exceptional remote classes for their students this Fall. And while we disagree with how the administration is choosing to distribute these funds, we are far more disturbed by the implications this move has for the wider negotiation. At a minimum, their laser focus and simultaneous total inflexibility on compensation issues undercuts the notion that the administration is committed to working collaboratively on other issues. In particular, the health and safety of our members and students–which the collective faculty have indicated over and over are  far more important–has been shoved behind conversations on compensation by the administration, conversations we now understand to have been farcical from the outset.

Meeting Is Not Bargaining
Bargaining, by definition, means negotiating to agreement. Since the beginning of these negotiations, however, the administration has set a tone of meeting with us, while studiously avoiding actually bargaining with us. By failing to bargain in good faith on compensation and so many other issues in the past, the administration is guilty of more than just poor form. They are systematically undermining the very basis of the union’s rights to represent you, our members, and our ability to enforce the contract for which you’ve all fought over the years.

We will return to negotiations this afternoon to express our concern that these negotiations are heading in the wrong direction. Regardless of bargaining outcomes, however, UICUF will remain committed to vigorously defending our faculty’s rights, especially to a safe and healthy environment for ourselves and our students, by all means available to us.

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We issue regular updates via email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and on our website. We encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. If you want to contribute your story, pictures, video, or other content related to the activities of the union, email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com. With your support, we are making UIC an even better place to work and learn!

24 Jul Safety First: Demand a Safe Fall Return Now!

• Sign Our Statement: As we’ve mentioned previously, we have a statement out, vetted by health and academic freedom experts in our membership, advocating faculty discretion to opt out of in person classes if you believe you are at risk.
• IFT Higher Ed Locals Advocate Remote Classes: Union faculty across the state agree remote learning is the prudent choice for a safe return to school this semester.
• Bargaining Continues Next Week: Admin is expected to return to the bargaining table next Friday with a draft Memorandum of Understanding on issues under negotiation. If they follow through, this will be a major move toward concluding negotiations.

Statement on Safe Return-to-Campus and Faculty Autonomy
As we’ve mentioned in prior messages, we are still collecting signatures on our statement on Returning to Campus this Fall. The statement foregrounds the need for faculty autonomy in defining their own risk relative to the COVID pandemic when deciding whether to return to in-person classes. It also echoes the University Senate’s statement advocating the freedom of faculty to deliver courses in whatever format best suits their class needs, based on their own professional judgement.

Signing onto this statement is an important action to let the UIC administration know you are serious about demanding your rights to discretion, both in terms of your personal safety and your pedagogy as an academic professional. Please sign the statement today!

IFT Higher Ed Locals’ Press Conference
In a press event yesterday, IFT’s higher education locals launched a new report on Best Practices for returning to campus this Fall, which is based in the most up-to-date science and intended to provide all of higher ed institutions in Illinois clear and uniform guidance. Ultimately, the call is for remote learning. If face-to-face classes are required, it should be subject to the faculty member’s decision, based on a thorough risk assessment. Besides classrooms, Kevin O’Brien, UICUF Library rep, discussed specific concerns about plans now underway to re-open UIC libraries and the real health risks students, staff, and faculty might face.

Impact Bargaining at a Critical Point
While we’re far from agreement on many key items, we expect a significant step forward next week, when we’ve been told by Labor Relations to expect a draft Memorandum of Understanding, documenting in writing our agreements thus far. You may recall that, to date, the administration has fiercely resisted putting anything in writing, and has lately tried to narrow the scope of negotiations to how a $1 million dollar payout for summer prep work is distributed.

We’ve rejected, on advisement from our membership, the notion that these negotiations are fundamentally about money, and continue to insist on agreements around campus safety, faculty autonomy, and reappointment of faculty. While we expect to reach an agreement around proposed payouts, we cannot ignore the administration’s silence on basic rights like faculty discretion to opt-out from in person teaching if it would endanger themselves or those close to them.

Once again, we are strongly encouraging you to support our bargaining efforts by signing our Return to Campus statement, and by submitting testimonials if you have them on how a forced return to in-person teaching would affect you and your students.

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We issue regular updates via email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and on our website. We encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. If you want to contribute your story, pictures, video, or other content related to the activities of the union, email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com. With your support, we are making UIC an even better place to work and learn!