Photo courtesy of UIC United Faculty Local 6456
UIC United Faculty members and student supporters held a silent protest Jan. 22 at UIC’s Board of Trustee’s meeting by holding signs that read: “Don’t Make Faculty Strike.” Faculty is planning a two-day strike Feb. 18 and 19.
By Fox Valley Labor News
staff reports
Thursday, Feb. 13, 2014
CHICAGO — After voting in December to authorize a strike, members of University of Illinois at Chicago United Faculty Local 6456 is asking students to support instructors when they partake in a two-day strike Tuesday Feb. 18 and Wednesday, Feb. 19.
A faculty letter to students posted on the Local’s website, read: “Sadly, unless the University Administration offers us a fair contract, we plan a two-day walkout. We hope you will join us in fighting for a better UIC by not attending your classes on these two days.”
For the past 16 months, members have been attempting to negotiate a fair union contract that benefits faculty, students and the university.
“We do not want to cancel classes and walk out, and we will do so only as a last resort. But after 65 bargaining sessions, contract negotiations with the University Administration have seen almost no progress on key issues,” the letter continued.
Union members took a strike vote at the beginning of December. Almost 80 percent of members participated in the vote and more than 95 percent of them voted to authorize a strike.
Non-tenure-track faculty (NTT) would like a minimum salary of $45,000 and a path to promotion, but were instead offered a minimum salary that even after three years wouldn’t get within the minimum living salary of $45,000 and absolutely no path to promotion.
Tenure-track faculty (TTF) faculty would like not only a minimum salary, but a system of compensation that truly rewards merit, both for work performed now and for work performed in past years. They would like to insist the methods of evaluation for promotion be fair, open and equitable across the campus.
With respect to present compensation, members would like a raise for next year that respects the lack of raises for the past five years, as well as failure to provide cost-of-living increases in one of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.
We also want a guarantee of a minimum raise for the life of the contract. What do they offer in response? Nothing even vaguely comparable. They carefully guard their ability to provide raises when they want to.
According to Local 6456, members have refused to “agree to accept that its NTT faculty colleagues remain mired in poverty or in a career limbo with no clear road out.
“We’ll never accept the Administration’s indifference to TT faculty whose loyalty to the university remains unrecognized and unrewarded in the name of the administration’s belief in a management style that is “my way or the highway.”
Members said they want to negotiate clear and specified wage increases in their contract and not be told to wait each year with their hands out, while the administration decides what’s best for them.