Contract Bargaining

07 Nov What Our Labor is Worth

UIC United Faculty members caucus with our bargaining team during a brief break from contract negotiations.

It’s Not Just About The Money
UIC United Faculty met once again this Monday with U of I’s negotiating team to continue advocating for a better faculty contract. Last session, we presented our full, comprehensive proposal, which included all of our economic proposals. While we did not receive counter proposals on those items, the Administration team did engage us on questions they had around issues ranging from PD funds to office space.

We can’t share specific language or numbers associated with contract proposals still being discussed, but we do want to remind our members of our core goals going into this negotiation. From the beginning, we’ve aimed to address issues around:

• Stagnant salaries amid rising costs of living in the Chicago area.
• Changing demands on faculty pursuant to rapid enrollment growth at the University.
• Shared governance principles that must form the backbone of decision-making at the University.

To reach these goals, we have proposed an array of measures that would improve working conditions, and are now adding items to address salary concerns across the board. “The last time we negotiated a contract, we were contending with budget austerity and hiring freezes,” explains Aaron Krall, Co-Lead Negotiator for UICUF, “but we’re in a different economic era now.”

While we’ve discussed many of our non-economic proposals already on this blog, our economic proposal cut to the heart of what our labor is worth. That means demanding raise pools that not only keep up with inflation, but make up for years of mediocre or non-growth. It means demanding a universal minimum raise built into the merit system, so no faculty member will be left behind. It means demanding money for professional development in meaningful amounts in relation to critical conferences in their fields. And it means demanding protections against ever-rising health care costs.

These are just a few of the things we intend to fight for, so that UIC faculty can continue to grow in and contribute to their academic communities, while prospering alongside the community they serve.

After Months of Resistance, U of I Recognizes Basic Nondiscrimination Protections
Meanwhile, we do have some good news to share. While we can’t say when our Administration counterparts intend to bring counter proposals on our economic items, or what those proposals will look like, we did see progress being made in other areas.

We are happy to say, we now have a tentative agreement on one of our earliest proposals, on nondiscrimination protections for our members. We brought this article up in the very first bargaining session expressly because we felt it would be common sense to expand protections to vulnerable communities, like non-citizens. Given the disappointing and dangerous turn in the national political climate around such issues, we believed it was a no-brainer to position UIC as a leader in protecting our community. U of I administration obviously didn’t see it that way on day one, and it has taken them 11 negotiating sessions to come around on what we consider to be the most basic protections we could ask for.

While this is certainly a victory for faculty and the UIC community, the staunch resistance Administration put up leads us to suspect that nothing is going to come easily out of this process. We are continuing to have useful discussions around raises and other economic issues, but we are also preparing for every eventuality, and intend to continue raising the pressure on Administration. We will keep pushing forward until we win the best contract we can, for our members, and for the UIC community as a whole.

Take Action: Union Rally at Rare Board of Trustees Visit to Chicago
Given the overall slow progress of negotiations so far, we feel compelled to raise our concerns in front of a larger audience. Next week, Thursday, November 15th, the U of I Board of Trustees will be at Student Center West for one of their rare Chicago meetings. We, alongside our fellow UIC unions, will hold a rally and press conference to show the Board that we will not stand by and be railroaded with a take-it-or-leave-it contract. We will also be joining our fellow workers in the Licensed Practical Nurses bargaining unit, who will be going on strike for their own contract the same day.

We highly encourage our members and allies to attend one or both of these events on the 15th. If you are able to join us, please RSVP to UICUFJeff@gmail.com.

*        *        *

Until we win a fair contract, we will be issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

In Solidarity,
UIC United Faculty Bargaining Team
Aaron Krall [Co-Chair], Senior Lecturer, English | Kevin Whyte [Co-Chair], Professor, Math, Statistics and Computer Science | Kheir Al-Kodmany, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy | Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies | Joaquin Chavez, Associate Professor, History | Jim Drown, Senior Lecturer, English | Chris Kanich, Assistant Professor, Computer Science | Paul Pieper, Associate Professor, Economics | Paul Preissner, Associate Professor, Architecture | Laurie Quinn, Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Science | Jeffrey Sklansky, Associate Professor, History | Charitianne Williams, Senior Lecturer, English | Milos Zefran, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

01 Nov Administration’s Frightful Bargaining Position

While Halloween is over, frightening things still haunt us…

FACULTY BURIED BY WORKLOAD
How would you feel if your Dean told you next semester you had to teach an additional class without extra pay AND you were expected to keep up the same level of research and service? This happened last year in Applied Health Sciences. While faculty organized and used shared governance to push back, without enforceable contract language on how workloads are defined and updated, no one is protected from unilateral decisions to change faculty workloads.

FACULTY SALARIES FLATLINED
How would you feel if you were told full-time faculty at UIC are paid more than their peers? That is what was presented to the Board of Trustees in September. And just who are our peers? SUNY, Buffalo, U of Alabama at Birmingham, U of Cincinnati, U of Connecticut, U of Louisville, U of South Florida-Tampa, U of Utah, Virginia Commonwealth. However, compared to the other three Research 1 universities in Illinois, UIC tenure system salaries are well below Northwestern and U of Chicago. While comparable to UIUC, the cost of housing in Urbana-Champaign is 16% lower than Chicago.  A 2% salary increase – the amount offered by UI administration’s campus wage program for this academic year – barely covers inflation and clearly doesn’t help close the gap.

Source: AAUP 2018 Compensation Survey Excludes part-time faculty members, medical school faculty members, faculty who are primarily administrative officers, and graduate teaching assistants.

While we hope the Administration will prove us wrong, next week we expect them to offer a scarily insufficient raise proposal and the same status-quo zombie proposals we’ve already put to rest on issues like workload. This would be in keeping with what we’ve already seen in our own negotiations, as well as what our fellow UIC unions have experienced (7 months of non-movement for UIC GEO’s contract negotiations, unilateral rewrites by Admin on articles they’d already agreed to with INA).

UIC United Faculty and our fellow unions are not a gaggle of terrified teenagers in a Halloween horror movie. We will send ghastly contract proposals packing and fight for what our members and the UIC community deserve: Fair, Transparent and Accountable workplace policies, and raises that make good on years of salary stagnation. We hope you’ll stand with us in this effort!

*        *        *

Our next contract bargaining session is Monday, November 5th. Join us in respectfully observing the bargaining process from 2-5pm, at Student Center East, White Oak Room (on the 3rd floor). Even if you can’t be there, we are asking all our members to wear their UICUF T-shirts and pins that day to show solidarity and support for our bargaining team at the table. If you need a T-shirt, pin, or other UICUF materials, email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com.

Until we win a fair contract, we will be issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

References in hyperlinks:
http://www.trustees.uillinois.edu/trustees/agenda/September-27-2018/r-sep-UIC-Performance-Metrics.pdf
https://www.insidehighered.com/aaup-compensation-survey
https://sites.google.com/a/bu.edu/zhuzhe/publications/3-tiers-of-us-research-universities-ranked-by-carnegie-classification-system
https://smartasset.com/mortgage/what-is-the-true-cost-of-living-in-chicago

25 Oct Bargaining Update: Administration Intransigence Won’t Hold Us Back

This Tuesday, faculty members attended our bargaining session en mass to observe negotiations with U of I Administration. We encourage our members to join us in promoting transparency and participation in this process by attending future bargaining sessions!

Simply No
From the beginning, Administration negotiators have been solely interested in seeing our economic proposals, regarding raises, development funds, etc. Our strategy of bringing forward noneconomic items first has forced them to discuss issues that our faculty members resoundingly endorsed, but, it seems, hasn’t made them take those concerns seriously.

Instead, these discussions have revealed that the Administration has no intention of addressing any substantive issues. Despite it costing them little or nothing to, for example, commit to greater transparency in workload and discipline policies, Administration has consistently chosen to stonewall. They even eventually dropped the pretense of wanting to weigh these proposals on fundamental workplace rights against the cost of our salaries. The message is clear: they simply won’t give faculty anything they don’t have to, no matter how reasonable or justified.

Escalating Pressure
On Tuesday, we put Administration’s intransigence to the test one more time, now with an audience. We were disappointed to find that, even with a gallery of faculty from around the university watching, they couldn’t muster so much as a token gesture toward building a better contract. Unfortunately, our bargaining team is already all too familiar with this dismissive attitude toward faculty priorities.

Given the lackluster response at the bargaining table, and a questionable negotiating history in general, we increasingly suspect that there will be no serious negotiation without serious action on our part. Remember how UIUC Grads were forced to strike this year over something as fundamental as protecting fee waivers? Or how we ourselves were forced to strike in 2014 to get our first contract?

The Administration thus far is categorically unwilling to discuss proposals that cost them nothing. Even the UIC Provost has signaled skepticism over basic protections, like an accountable process to review academic freedom violations. They can’t even agree to extend non-discrimination rights to non-citizens. How can we expect any better behavior when real money is on the table?

Full Steam Ahead
At this point, in the name of moving forward, we have decided to proceed with our comprehensive proposal, including all economic articles. We do this not because we feel it will improve negotiating conditions, but because it is a necessary step as we plan to bring further pressure to bear.

The economic proposals we’ve introduced include, but are not limited to:

• Raises to help us catch up and keep up after years of salary stagnation
• Accessible PD funds that go the distance when applying to academic conferences
• Expanded commitments to maintain facilities, policies, and staffing befitting of an R1 university

 
We will, of course, continue to push for robust improvements to workplace rights. As we’ve said before, UIC faculty deserve improvements to working conditions AND raises that make good on years of weak salary growth. We will not support an agreement that trades one for the other, and while we are a long way off from a potential work stoppage, UICUF has not ruled out any action which may be necessary to achieve these meaningful improvements to our contract.

Our next bargaining session is Monday, 11/5, 2-5pm (location TBD). Send a strong message to the Administration by wearing your union colors in solidarity, and attending the session if you are able. We anticipate that economic proposals will be under discussion at this meeting. Email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com to RSVP!

* * *

Until we win a fair contract, we will continue issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

In Solidarity,

UIC United Faculty Bargaining Team
Aaron Krall [Co-Chair], Senior Lecturer, English | Kevin Whyte [Co-Chair], Professor, Math, Statistics and Computer Science | Kheir Al-Kodmany, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy | Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies | Joaquin Chavez, Associate Professor, History | Jim Drown, Senior Lecturer, English | Chris Kanich, Assistant Professor, Computer Science | Paul Pieper, Associate Professor, Economics | Paul Preissner, Associate Professor, Architecture | Laurie Quinn, Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Science | Jeffrey Sklansky, Associate Professor, History | Charitianne Williams, Senior Lecturer, English | Milos Zefran, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

11 Oct Bargaining Update: A Turning Point

Bargaining By The Numbers

Our Bargaining Team began preparing almost a year ago, and has been meeting with U of I Administration for about 4 months. We’ve had our share of ups and downs, but we have now reached a critical point in our negotiations. To get a sense of how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go, here’s a look at our contract negotiations by the numbers:

Meetings with Administration: 9
Hours at the Bargaining Table: 27
Articles with Tentative Agreement: 8 (the easy ones)
Active Proposals: 8 (the power issues)
What’s left: 5 (the money issues)

Degrees of Difficulty

Easy: These articles are “uncontroversial” (e.g., minor language tweaks, little/no substantive changes).

Power: These articles deal with making sure our working conditions are fair, transparent, and responsive to core academic principles, like shared governance and academic freedom.

Money: These articles deal directly with economics – salaries, development funds, computers, etc – to make sure our faculty get paid what they deserve and keep up with our region’s rising cost of living. It’s common and strategic to introduce these last, after non-economic gains are made.

Weighing the Odds

We’ve held economic articles back because we first wanted to get some agreement on non-economic matters – issues our members value and that cost the Administration very little or nothing at all.  

Making good on years of stagnant salaries is a critical issue, but we don’t agree with the Administration’s position that granting basic workplace rights must be weighed against those raises.

Given the fact that they have said NO already to most of our non-economic proposals, we do not feel confident the Administration will say YES to raising our salaries.

A Turning Point

Which brings us to the proposals currently on the table. Our members resoundingly indicated that they wanted our new contract to address the following issues:

Control over Workload Expectations
Expansion of Non-Discrimination Protections
Protection for Academic Freedom
Fair and Transparent Discipline Processes
Responsible Use of Student Evaluation Scores
Improved Campus Safety for Late Courses

So far, the response from Administration has been minimal. Their few substantive counter proposals indicate a step backwards for faculty rights, and no real spirit of legitimate give-and-take.

At our last session, the Administration told us they really have no interest in accepting anything that goes beyond our current contract. In other words, they don’t believe they need to acknowledge the concerns that faculty clearly have about current working conditions. They certainly don’t want to give faculty the power to insist on improvements to those conditions through an enforceable contract.

Rank and File

It’s now clear that if we want to be treated fairly at the table, we must prepare to take action. Our greatest leverage is our membership, and it is the time to remind the Administration that we don’t have to simply agree to take-it-or-leave-it terms.

We are calling on all of our members to do two things:

Join us at our next bargaining session, Tuesday, 10/23, 2-5pm at Student Center East, Room 613. Help us keep the Administration Team honest, by attending and respectfully observing the process with your union T-shirt or pin on. To get union gear and/or RSVP to the session, email us at uicunitedfaculty@gmail.com.

Tell us what matters to you. Watch for a short survey to review and prioritize the issues we are trying to address. This 5 minute survey will give our bargaining team valuable input on how to proceed.

Remember, solidarity matters, and it starts with you!

*        *        *

Until we win a fair contract, we will continue issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

In Solidarity,

UIC United Faculty Bargaining Team

Aaron Krall [Co-Chair], Senior Lecturer, English | Kevin Whyte [Co-Chair], Professor, Math, Statistics and Computer Science | Kheir Al-Kodmany, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy | Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies | Joaquin Chavez, Associate Professor, History | Jim Drown, Senior Lecturer, English | Chris Kanich, Assistant Professor, Computer Science | Paul Pieper, Associate Professor, Economics | Paul Preissner, Associate Professor, Architecture | Laurie Quinn, Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Science | Jeffrey Sklansky, Associate Professor, History | Charitianne Williams, Senior Lecturer, English | Milos Zefran, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

28 Sep Bargaining Update: Solidarity Amid Halting Progress

At The Table This Week

Yesterday, UICUF’s Bargaining Team came to the table with the understanding that we’d laid the groundwork for more substantial discussion on non-economic issues. As a reminder, we have not brought forward any overtly economic proposals, in order to keep the focus on quality of life issues and shared values.

Unfortunately, the Labor Relations Bargaining Lead has chosen to double down on their prior insistence that they can’t discuss much without our economic proposals. The Administration Team had previously asked for a specific article, on Appointment and Promotion, as a path to move forward. As a show of good faith, our team agreed to present that article, but the Administration Team has returned with little other than status quo rejections of our proposals since then, and another demand for our economic proposals before they will proceed.  

We fundamentally disagree that it is necessary to weigh, for example, non-discrimination or transparent discipline processes, against pay raises before decisions can be made. Our members deserve both improved working conditions AND a meaningful raise in the next contract, and we don’t intend to accept false equivalencies that would seek to pit one against the other.

That being said, we are having positive discussion around some issues, and may be nearing agreement on one additional article. There are certainly still opportunities to move forward with what is already on the table, should the Administration Team choose to do so.

Solidarity Beyond the Bargaining Table

Meanwhile, we want to remind everyone that the strength of our union is defined not just by the skill of our negotiating team, but by the commitment of our membership. This week, we’ve initiated a number of activities to strengthen our union, and encourage you to remember the importance of day-to-day solidarity.

This Tuesday, we had our first Representative training of the semester, giving our elected Reps the tools they need to serve as a resource for members in their departments. Training included modules on communications, department relations, and perhaps most critically, resolving member issues, up to and including formal grievances. Another training will be offered next Tuesday, 10-2pm, and we invite all members to learn how the union works, even if you are not a current Representative.

Bargaining Team members and other volunteers also set up a table in University Hall on Wednesday. We handed out dozens of T-shirts and pins to our members, and encourage everyone to wear your union gear on bargaining days to support our efforts at the negotiating table. Solidarity matters, and it starts with you!

* * *

Our next contract bargaining session is October 9th. We are asking all our members to wear their UICUF T-shirts and pins that day to show solidarity and support for our bargaining team at the table. If you are a member and need a T-shirt, pin, or other UICUF materials, email us at UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com.

Until we win a fair contract, we will be issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

In Solidarity,

UIC United Faculty Bargaining Team

Aaron Krall [Co-Chair], Senior Lecturer, English | Kevin Whyte [Co-Chair], Professor, Math, Statistics and Computer Science | Kheir Al-Kodmany, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy | Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies | Joaquin Chavez, Associate Professor, History | Jim Drown, Senior Lecturer, English | Chris Kanich, Assistant Professor, Computer Science | Paul Pieper, Associate Professor, Economics | Paul Preissner, Associate Professor, Architecture | Laurie Quinn, Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Science | Jeffrey Sklansky, Associate Professor, History | Charitianne Williams, Senior Lecturer, English | Milos Zefran, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

13 Sep Not For Sale

Labor Relations: By the Book
UICUF and Administration teams met again September 12th to continue negotiating our next contract. Right away, we learned that this session was going to largely be an exercise in rejection. The Labor Relations Lead continues to follow the typical management playbook: offer nothing and hope the union will negotiate against itself, trading money for values.

We won’t.

But We Fixed It
The administration team responded substantively to three proposals currently on the table. Hours of Work (i.e., teaching loads), for which we proposed a system of shared governance-led accountability, was returned with agreement only that faculty should be notified when teaching loads change. We’ve already seen this scenario play out, however, with administrators arbitrarily changing workload policies, sparking crises for their departments. Administration claims that these scenarios don’t need to be in the contract because, when the union called them out, they made minor concessions. Just because you say you’re sorry, doesn’t mean it won’t happen again.

Just Leave That To Us
Next up, Administration all but rejected an expansion of grievance procedures that would have made violations of the U of I statutes grievable. Our contract frequently references the Statutes, and the Administration team frequently says they would prefer to simply rely on the Statutes in place of our contract. They say that there is no need for contractual protections because they rarely see problems related to enforcement of the Statutes. UICUF has found that in reality, the Administration cherrypicks which statutes to enforce, and that the mechanisms of enforcement are opaque and in some case deeply flawed. A grievance procedure to contractually enforce the statutes seems at this point to be the only way to keep them accountable to their own rules. 

We’re Already Aware of That
Lastly, the Administration team outright rejected our request for a side letter outlining a process for reviewing campus safety. We asked for this in relation to expanded night classes in the new scheduling grid. They did, however, point to actions they’ve been taking while negotiations have been ongoing, like adding lighting and security personnel.

In an email sent on Sept. 6th, Vice Chancellor Coronado outlined improvements to campus safety. UICUF’s bargaining survey this winter indicated that 1 in 7 faculty feel unsafe on campus, specifically at night, but given the improvements being made, UICUF and the Administration want to hear from you: do you feel safer on campus at night? Email UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com, or go to Provost Poser’s open office hours, Tuesday, September 18 from 2:00-3:00 p.m., 2550 UH if you have lingering concerns.

UIC United Faculty: Values Are Not For Sale
In this session, we offered our last non-economic article, on Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure. Though this article is tightly intertwined with economic proposals regarding salaries, we offered it, at Administration’s specific request, as a show of good faith. They claim this is a minimum needed for them to consider what is already on the table, and we expect serious consideration of those articles moving forward.

To this point, we have presented only non-economic articles for discussion. We’ve chosen this path to keep an emphasis on articles that express our values, and impact our members’ quality of life. Administration has steadily quarreled with this approach, claiming they can’t make any significant decisions without seeing the money.

We disagree. We’ve held back money proposals precisely because we don’t believe our values are related to our salaries. We do not believe pay increases, which have fallen flat against inflation for years, should be held hostage, leveraged to force us away from positions on equity, transparency, and accountability.

When it all boils down, a union contract is NOT just a litany of economic exchanges. It represents our values, and our values are not for sale. 

* * *

Our next contract bargaining session has not yet been scheduled, but in the interim, we will continue to post weekly articles on topics of critical interest to our membership.

Until we win a fair contract, we will be issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

In Solidarity,

UIC United Faculty Bargaining Team

Aaron Krall [Co-Chair], Senior Lecturer, English | Kevin Whyte [Co-Chair], Professor, Math, Statistics and Computer Science | Kheir Al-Kodmany, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy | Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies | Joaquin Chavez, Associate Professor, History | Jim Drown, Senior Lecturer, English | Chris Kanich, Assistant Professor, Computer Science | Paul Pieper, Associate Professor, Economics | Paul Preissner, Associate Professor, Architecture | Laurie Quinn, Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Science | Jeffrey Sklansky, Associate Professor, History | Charitianne Williams, Senior Lecturer, English | Milos Zefran, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

06 Sep Summer ’18 Bargaining Roundup

What’s Happened So Far

A new school year may have just begun, but UIC United Faculty has been hard at work this summer negotiating a new contract with University Administration. For those just now tuning in, we wanted to offer a quick review of what’s gone on so far.

There have been 6 negotiating sessions since we submitted a demand to bargain in May.  Below are links to all of our bargaining related articles, with abstracts for those who want to catch up, but don’t have a lot of time!

UIC United Faculty Union Announces Intent to Bargain New Contract – 5/9/18
UICUF presented University Administration with our demand to bargain a new contract. We set goals of addressing

• Stagnant salaries amid rising costs of living in the Chicago area.
• Changing demands on faculty pursuant to rapid enrollment growth at the University.
• Shared governance principles that must form the backbone of decision-making at the University.

Bargaining Update #1: First Session Scheduled, Follow for Updates – 6/12/18
University Administration agrees to meet with us, and initial bargaining dates are scheduled.

Bargaining Update #2: Meet The Team – 6/18/18
UIC UF sets up social media and invites members to meet the bargaining team for the first time.

Bargaining Update #3: First Session Report – 6/21/18
UICUF and University Administration negotiating teams meet for the first time. Beyond introduction, we introduced:

• Articles ready to sign with no changes
• Articles altered solely to bring TT and NTT contract language closer together
• Common-sense updates to our nondiscrimination language.

Bargaining Update #4: Early Tentative Agreements – 6/28/18
UICUF and University Administration teams signed tentative agreements (final, subject to ratification) on 6 articles with no changes, or non-substantive language changes. UICUF Introduces articles on Academic Freedom and Discipline & Dismissal.

Bargaining Update #5: 3rd Session Progress – 7/12/18
We signed agreements on one more set of articles with minor changes, and dug into more challenging issues of Academic Freedom and Discipline & Dismissal. UICUF agreed, after substantial discussion with local UIC administrators at the table, to rework the D&D articles with their comments in mind. We encouraged the Admin team to respond to some of our proposals directly at the next session.

Bargaining Update #6: Administration Finally Responds…Sort Of – 7/19/18
UICUF offered a revised Discipline & Dismissal proposal at the Administration Team’s prompting. The Admin Team, lead by U of I Labor Relations, answered our call for counter proposals by returning our Academic Freedom articles without acknowledging any of our proposed changes.  

Bargaining Update #7: The Football Gag – 8/3/18
The Admin Team responded to our revised Discipline & Dismissal articles by wiping out all of the changes we’d made at their own request, and presenting a counter proposal barely changed from the current contract. They proposed one original change from their side: that non-renewals be classified as non-disciplinary in all cases, and therefore not subject to grievances. UICUF presented articles to improve transparency and accountability of campus safety effort related to the new scheduling grid.

Bargaining Update #8: Defining Workload, Holding the Line on Due Process – 8/24/18
UICUF rejected Administration’s counter on Discipline & Dismissal as an effort to erode the accountability of discipline rather than strengthen it. We moved forward with presenting articles creating shared governance-based accountability for workload definitions, and transparency on the use of SIT Scores.

* * *

Our next contract bargaining session is Wednesday, September 12th. Until we get a fair contract, we will continue to post weekly articles on topics of critical interest to our membership.

For the duration of the bargaining process, we will be issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

In Solidarity,

UIC United Faculty Bargaining Team

Aaron Krall [Co-Chair], Senior Lecturer, English | Kevin Whyte [Co-Chair], Professor, Math, Statistics and Computer Science | Kheir Al-Kodmany, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy | Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies | Joaquin Chavez, Associate Professor, History | Jim Drown, Senior Lecturer, English | Chris Kanich, Assistant Professor, Computer Science | Paul Pieper, Associate Professor, Economics | Paul Preissner, Associate Professor, Architecture | Laurie Quinn, Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Science | Jeffrey Sklansky, Associate Professor, History | Charitianne Williams, Senior Lecturer, English | Milos Zefran, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

24 Aug Bargaining Update #8: Defining Workload, Holding the Line on Due Process

Defining Workloads

This bargaining session, the UIC United Faculty team presented a new article on workload. It is UIC United Faculty’s position that faculty need a voice in workload decisions, specifically through existing shared governance processes. The union has registered a number of complaints about dramatic shifts or inconsistent accounting of workloads, often imposed unilaterally by administrators with little or no faculty input. We do not feel that such coercive, top-down practices are appropriate for determining the working conditions of dedicated professionals. 

While imposing a one-size-fits-all solution on every department would be equally inappropriate, we do feel that existing shared governance structures can and should be engaged. Shared governance is one of the most important principles in academia, and UICUF believes that giving an engaged, empowered faculty a voice in how workloads are defined is the most practical way to address each unique department’s needs.  

Reining in SIT Scores

We also sought to discuss other articles, but no specific movement could be found on anything currently on the table. The UIC Administration team rejected any notion of contractually addressing the use of student evaluations of faculty, often referred to as SIT Scores. While the faculty senate has tentatively accepted the use of these evaluations, they offer a stern warning against their consideration absent other methods:

“It is important that all participating faculty and students are aware that a growing body of research exists to suggest that student evaluations of teaching may be biased in terms of specific faculty populations, such as women and individuals of minority status. For this reason, the data from student evaluations of teaching are not to be used in isolation from other recommended approaches to the evaluation of teaching effectiveness…”

An over reliance on, and potentially improper use of these notoriously flawed scores in evaluating faculty has been a major, ongoing concern for our members. While the University Administration clearly doesn’t want to even discuss the use of SIT Scores in faculty evaluations, or the publishing of such scores, we intend to continue advocating for common sense guidelines, and further study of the issue in general.

Holding the Line on Due Process

Our team, meanwhile, was forced to reject proposals from management that would simply enshrine an unsatisfactory status quo regarding academic freedom protections and discipline and dismissal procedures. Having seen the opaque and often subjective way that the university handles faculty discipline, UIC United Faculty simply cannot accept that less is more when it comes to due process protections for our members.  

Overall, UIC United Faculty is disappointed in the University Administration team’s unwillingness to discuss these concerns in earnest. We will, however, be returning to the table next time with the hope that further progress can be made, and that Labor Relations will not categorically stifle discourse on issues that matter to our members.

* * *

Our next contract bargaining session is Wednesday, September 12th. In the interim, we will continue to post weekly articles on topics of critical interest to our membership.

For the duration of the bargaining process, we will be issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

In Solidarity,

UIC United Faculty Bargaining Team

Aaron Krall [Co-Chair], Senior Lecturer, English | Kevin Whyte [Co-Chair], Professor, Math, Statistics and Computer Science | Kheir Al-Kodmany, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy | Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies | Joaquin Chavez, Associate Professor, History | Jim Drown, Senior Lecturer, English | Chris Kanich, Assistant Professor, Computer Science | Paul Pieper, Associate Professor, Economics | Paul Preissner, Associate Professor, Architecture | Laurie Quinn, Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Science | Jeffrey Sklansky, Associate Professor, History | Charitianne Williams, Senior Lecturer, English | Milos Zefran, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

03 Aug Bargaining Update #7: The Football Gag

Kick the Football, Charlie Brown!

Three weeks ago, the UIC United Faculty team proposed changes to discipline and dismissal in our contract. We aimed to describe a process for discipline that is Fair to the faculty under scrutiny; Transparent, so that all parties know what to expect; and Consistent, so that faculty are treated equally across the university.

When we presented our changes, we received predictable push back from the University Labor Relations representative, who is the administration’s bargaining lead. Despite this, local UIC administrators, who also sit on the admin team, engaged with us at length on this topic, saying that clear guidelines could be useful all around. The UIC administrators at the table went as far as to ask our team for rewrites of the article, with bullet-point steps for a discipline procedure.

While we’d gone into it expecting equivocation at best, the offer to consider clear discipline procedure after some rewrites was a welcome development. The request, after all, fit our goals of making explicit the mechanisms of an often vague and inconsistent process, and had come out of what we felt to be a very productive engagement over mutual values.

“AAUGH!”

Perhaps, after years of hard bargaining tactics from U of I Labor Relations, it was naive to think that having local UIC administrators at the table would change the dynamic. We took the request for rewrites at face value, but when we arrived at the table this Wednesday, the Labor Relations lead made it clear that they had no intention of letting us play ball.

In their counter proposal, virtually all of the rewrites they asked for us to provide were dismissed. When asked where the desire for specific discipline guidelines had gone, Labor Relations only acknowledged that a faculty member should be notified when discipline is taking place. Any process beyond that most basic principle, they consider to be too “one-size-fits-all.”

This counter proposal, which went notably unremarked upon by UIC administrators in the room, further stipulated that non-renewals are not discipline and wouldn’t be covered under this article. Labor Relations justified this by pointing out that it is rare to have any NTT discipline issues reach a formal stage, asserting that covering non-renewal under this heading would be obtuse. We can’t comment on the volume of so-called “formal” discipline cases involving NTT faculty, but it seems a tautology that a process lacking “formal” steps would imply a dearth of “formal” discipline. Moreover, when faculty can simply be non-renewed, with or without cause, why bother with formal discipline at all? Excluding non-renewal from the NTT discipline process only exacerbates the opacity we believed we were invited to address.      

By dismissing our efforts to address UIC administrators requested changes, it feels very much like Labor Relations is pulling away the football at the last moment.

Campus Safety and Grid-Lock

Discussion on campus safety was somewhat more direct. Administration refused to consider our proposal to form a committee or task force to deal with safety concerns pursuant to the new scheduling grid. The reason: having anticipated some campus safety concerns, there already is a plan in place to deal with safety in the new scheduling grid. See the Campus Scheduling Committee Report (after-hours safety proposals on pg15). Further, any concerns should be brought directly to the Provost.

Unfortunately, fully one-fourth of our members responding to our survey last fall said they had concerns about safety on campus. In particular, many of our members signaled specific concerns about teaching late classes under the new scheduling grid. We do appreciate that the Provost’s office is working to address some of these issues. However, we are not entirely satisfied with the suggestion that our concerns can be satisfactorily handled without meaningful input or oversight from stakeholders outside of administration. It is still our hope that some form of collaborative process can prevail, for our members’ peace of mind, and that of others in the community.

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Our next bargaining session is Wednesday, August 23rd.

For the duration of the bargaining process, we will be issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

In Solidarity,

UIC United Faculty Bargaining Team

Aaron Krall [Co-Chair], Senior Lecturer, English | Kevin Whyte [Co-Chair], Professor, Math, Statistics and Computer Science | Kheir Al-Kodmany, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy | Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies | Joaquin Chavez, Associate Professor, History | Jim Drown, Senior Lecturer, English | Chris Kanich, Assistant Professor, Computer Science | Paul Pieper, Associate Professor, Economics | Paul Preissner, Associate Professor, Architecture | Laurie Quinn, Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Science | Jeffrey Sklansky, Associate Professor, History | Charitianne Williams, Senior Lecturer, English | Milos Zefran, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

19 Jul Bargaining Update #6: Administration Finally Responds…Sort Of

A Minimal Response

In our last session, the United Faculty team invited and encouraged the Administration’s negotiators to return with counter proposals, which they have so far withheld. We feel that it is difficult to negotiate if the other side only ever demands more of our positions, without staking any of their own. After all, how can we close the gap between our two sides on a given article if they refuse to tell us where they stand?

Well, yesterday, the Admin team did finally respond to our request for counter proposals. To be fair, they had warned that doing so might draw the two sides further apart, but we encouraged them to respond anyway. Given that warning, it’s not surprising that Administration chose to offer only the status quo.

We Just Really Love the Language In This Contract

The Administration team chose to return to the table with a counter proposal on only one of the four articles under discussion at this time. The article in question, regarding Academic Freedom, was returned unchanged, aside from a minor language correction. Note that while we’ve TA’d a number of articles with such minimal changes, this rebuttal is different. The United Faculty had originally brought a proposal with what we view as substantial and important upgrades, to ensure a fair, consistent, and transparent process for academic freedom reviews.

The Administration team’s reasoning for doing the bare minimum? They told us, as they have said repeatedly from the start of negotiations, that they just really love the current contract, and don’t want to see anything change.

A Missed Opportunity

We on the United Faculty side of the table view this move as a missed opportunity on the part of the Administration’s negotiating team. They have already stated that they agree with several of our positions in principle, but rather than bring substantive counter positions and attempt to move toward consensus, they’ve chosen to simply say “no” to our proposal.

We hoped, and still hope, that we can meet with the Administration’s team and truly discuss and bargain over areas of mutual interest, but so far we aren’t exactly being met half-way. Unfortunately, this is not unprecedented. It is, in fact, a move right out of the standard management playbook: Give us nothing, and hope we’ll bargain against ourselves. (Check out #4 on Harvard’s list of Hard Bargaining Tactics)

Moving Forward

The Admin team has responded to the strictest, most minimal interpretation of our request for counter proposals on areas currently under discussion. Of course, it is still very early in the process, and we will continue to appeal to their desire for a fair and efficient process. To us, this means a give and take, and especially where there is no financial implication, a discussion of shared values. We value our university, and want it to be the best place it can be, for us to work, and for our students to learn.

Our next bargaining session is Wednesday, August 1st.

For the duration of the bargaining process, we will be issuing periodic updates via email, facebook, twitter, and here on our website. We strongly encourage everyone to like and follow us on social media. With your support, we can make UIC an even better place to work and learn!

In Solidarity,

UIC United Faculty Bargaining Team

Aaron Krall [Co-Chair], Senior Lecturer, English | Kevin Whyte [Co-Chair], Professor, Math, Statistics and Computer Science | Kheir Al-Kodmany, Professor, Urban Planning and Policy | Xochitl Bada, Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies | Joaquin Chavez, Associate Professor, History | Jim Drown, Senior Lecturer, English | Chris Kanich, Assistant Professor, Computer Science | Paul Pieper, Associate Professor, Economics | Paul Preissner, Associate Professor, Architecture | Laurie Quinn, Clinical Professor, Biobehavioral Science | Jeffrey Sklansky, Associate Professor, History | Charitianne Williams, Senior Lecturer, English | Milos Zefran, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering