30 Nov UICUF Bargaining Team Calls Strike for January 17 if Necessary
- Member meeting update: UICUF members agree to set strike date for January 17
- Please volunteer to be a picket captain or join the organizing committee
- 3 more bargaining sessions this semester: Dec 6, Dec 9, Dec 12.
Strike Readiness meeting update
After a well-attended and lively member meeting Monday evening, the UICUF Bargaining Committee has set January 17, 2023, as the tentative start to an indefinite strike if we are unable to secure a fair contract before then. We have all been working without a contract for almost a full semester now, and are committed to not let that continue into the spring.
Pulling off a strong strike takes input from everyone. We’re asking union members to sign up to be picket captains and to join an organizing committee that will help plan actions each day of a potential strike. These are crucial roles to help union leaders and staff prepare for a strike and to help mobilize other union members to participate.
Bargaining Update
With three more sessions scheduled before the end of the current semester, we remain far apart from management on a number of issues crucial to making UIC an excellent place to work and learn.
- We seek raises that reward merit and address compression and equity, on top of keeping up with inflation. The standing offer from the administration would constitute an effective pay cut, given inflation. What they are offering for the next two years wouldn’t make up for the inflation of the past year.
- We seek greater job security and support for NTT faculty–now nearly half of UIC’s faculty–including earlier notice of reappointment, rolling contracts, protections against workload creep, and access to professional leaves. The administration will not entertain any of this.
- We seek a system of progressive discipline for tenured and tenure-track faculty that NTT faculty already enjoy. The administration has rejected our efforts to specify due process rights for tenured and tenure-track faculty.
- We want to require that administrators who ignore faculty votes in the shared governance process explain their rationale for rejecting faculty advice. The administration does not think that faculty deserve to know why their advice was not followed.
- We seek a minimum level of mental health care for our students, as well as access for UIC students to the same free evaluation for learning disabilities that students at UIUC enjoy. The administration doesn’t think such things belong in our contract, and hasn’t committed to realizing these support systems through other means.
Please join the bargaining team at our remaining three sessions and make your voice heard!
In Solidarity,
The UIC UF Bargaining team
Xochitl Bada (Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies) | Aaron Krall (Senior Lecturer, English) | Andy Baker (Clinical Assistant Professor, Music) | Anna Kornbluh (Professor, English) | Becky Bonarek (Lecturer, Tutorium in Intensive English) | Charitianne Williams (Senior Lecturer, English) | Gosia Fidelis (Associate Professor, History) | Ian Collins (Clinical Assistant Professor, Daley Library) | Jim Drown (Senior Lecturer, English) | Jeff Gore (Senior Lecturer, English) | Jennifer Rupert (Senior Lecturer, English, Gender and Women’s Studies) | Kate Floros (Clinical Associate Professor, Political Science) | Kate Lowe (Associate Professor, Urban Planning and Policy) | Kevin O’Brien (Clinical Associate Professor, Library of the Health Sciences) | Kevin Whyte (Professor, Math, Statistics, and Computer Science) | Laurie Quinn (Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Nursing Science) | Nicole Nguyen (Associate Professor, Educational Policy Studies) | Paul Preissner (Professor, Architecture)