Bargaining Recap #8: They Responded to Compensation
We met on Tuesday, July 14 for our eighth bargaining session with management. The big news from this session was that they gave us counterproposals on Article VI. Compensation, Leaves, and Benefits (NTT only) and Article XXIII. Duration (NTT only).
Unfortunately, the counterproposals are as unserious as anticipated.
In their counterproposal on compensation, management:
- Offered only campus wage for merit increases each year of the contract
- Did not agree to any raises for compression or equity
- Eliminated the lump sum payment that aims to boost the lowest-paid among our membership
- Denied taking accountability for delayed payments
- Froze minimum salaries and professional development funds at their current rate (Year 4 of our current contract). Note: the counterproposal they sent actually rolls back our PD fund allotment to Year 1 (2022) amounts, but management said that was a mistake; we await the corrected document.
- Eliminated the non tenure-track professional development leave pilot program
Management wants to lock us into campus wage only – which has every possibility of being 0% after this year – while claiming not to understand widely-accepted definitions of compression and equity. Bargaining cycle after cycle, across colleges and academic ranks, compression continues to be members’ number one issue when it comes to financials, and yet management refuses to believe the data or that the problem even exists. They also continue to claim financial hardship and yet refuse to do anything about the budget model that contributes to the issue. They’re making active choices about what to fund and what not to fund; pay attention to what they believe is worthy of investment.
If higher education is under attack as they agree it is, management should be doing everything they can to fund and protect faculty who perform service for the university and most importantly teach our students. They’re choosing not to.
In terms of contract duration, management wants to lock us into a four-year contract instead of our proposed two-year contract because “that’s the way it’s always been.” (It hasn’t.) They also rejected a longer window for bargaining before contract expiration because we’re on our fourth or fifth contract; management doesn’t believe it should need major revision at this point.
Management stated, in fact, that if we “didn’t propose such extensive revisions, we could settle the contract faster.”
That sentiment is wildly unserious and patently insulting.
Set aside the forced break in negotiations because of management’s illegal shenanigans. Set aside the drip of counterproposals returned by management (despite having our full contract since April), and their purposeful chaos that slows down progress.
Not a single one of our contracts has been settled before its predecessor’s expiration, so the idea that we already have enough allotted time is empirically false. Yet again, they are trying to codify the expectation that we will work out of contract, and we will continue to reject normalizing that expectation.
Management is saying we ask for too much: money, academic freedom, protections, accountability, shared governance, mental health support, toilet paper. If we would only settle for the status quo, this could all be over.
No.
A contract isn’t a multiple-choice test that you retake until you get the “right” answer; it’s an agreement that we should adapt to new circumstances. Previous contracts couldn’t anticipate Covid or its fallout, the federal government invading our city and campus, grant funding evaporating on a whim, or the rise of AI in our classrooms. The contract we have proposed is both reactive and proactive, addressing loopholes or imposing consequences while also anticipating future challenges. Even while acknowledging our continued unprecedented times, management champions the status quo, and that is just not enough to meet the moment.
We champion the changing needs of our faculty, our university, and our community. And we put in the effort to do it.
Pack the Room! Come to the Next Bargaining Session
Our ninth bargaining session will be on Wednesday, July 29 from 1-3 PM in Student Center East, room 613 (in the Tower), and we want to pack the room. We’re hoping to hear management counterproposals on issues related to academic freedom and workplace conditions, and we need all available members to show up to this session to show management that we stand behind this contract and our team.
This is more than our usual invitation to attend bargaining: with the end of our current contract looming, and in the face of management’s laissez-faire attitude towards getting a new contract done, we need to show up in force; attending bargaining in person is one way to show management how serious we are. And lunch will be provided! Please fill out a survey here if you intend to attend on the 29th and inform our union staff if you have any dietary restrictions.
The plan for the 29th:
- 12 PM: Lunch
- 12:30 PM: Bargaining Huddle: our bargaining co-chairs will catch you up on the state of bargaining and the day’s agenda
- 1-3 PM: Bargaining
If you’re interested in further supporting the bargaining campaign, we're assembling a Contract Action Team (CAT) to mobilize participation in union actions. We'll be holding a series of CAT organizing trainings over the summer and into the fall. If you're interested in getting trained to talk to people in your department about the union and the ongoing contract fight, please send a message to UICUnitedFaculty@gmail.com.
We’re less than a month away from the expiration of our current contract. Help our bargaining team by putting more eyes on their chaos and pressuring management to start seriously negotiating.
See you on the 29th.