Breaking Down The Latest Contract In Strike Negotiations
By
Fanna Haile-Selassie
By
Randy Livingston
Story Created:
Nov 8, 2011 at 5:53 PM CST
Story Updated:
Nov 9, 2011 at 11:01 AM CST
CARBONDALE -- Bargaining teams for the SIU administration and the Faculty Association have made some progress and whittled down the list of unresolved issues, but there is more work to do before finalizing a deal.
Both sides seem to have found a resolution to what has been the biggest point of contention so far -- when the university can declare a financial emergency and lay off tenured professors. The administration has added clear definitions of the procedure in the contract, and the faculty union has agreed to drop its demand for an outside arbitrator to oversee that process.
After six days of a strike, only three issues divide the bargaining teams that would send picketers home and professors back to the classrooms.
"It ought to be pretty easy. We don't have many issues left," claims Dave Johnson, the Faculty Association's spokesperson.
The issue of furloughs tops the list. The latest proposal by the SIU administration guarantees no furloughs in the 2012 fiscal year. Anytime after that, the administration would have to bargain with the Faculty Association for those unpaid days off. However, the administration would have the authority to enforce the furloughs.
"We need to keep that as one of the tools that we would use to help us to temporarily ride through a downturn in our revenues. And we would certainly seek broad input, we would certainly look for other strategies as well," says SIU Chancellor Rita Cheng.
But the faculty union says the furloughs essentially allow the university to arbitrarily cut their salary and put the money saved into areas other than academics.
"What we've also seen is that the administration has found money for its own priorities," says Johnson. "It's found money for a large, new marketing campaign. It's found money to continue the construction on campus, including construction of administrative buildings, [and] the Saluki Way program."
Tensions have run high in these year-and-a-half long negotiations, and the Faculty Association says new language in the back-to-work clause of the contract is not helping to ease bitter feelings.
"Language that implied that faculty were guilty of misconduct during the strike, that implied that faculty members had been threatening other faculty members, even threatening students," explains Johnson.
SIU administrators claim they used standard contract language, which includes not paying striking faculty members for the last few days.
"People have not worked for four days. Those who have not worked will not be paid, but we welcome them back at any moment," says Cheng.
The last major point of contention is fair share. It's the ability to enforce all represented workers to pay union dues, even if they don't want to be a member of the union. All the other unions on campus have a 50% fair share, meaning if they reach a 50% membership level, they can enforce the dues.
The administration says the faculty union is structured differently, with senior faculty who hire junior faculty members and decide on tenure. Therefore, it could potentially create unwanted peer pressure. However, while the Faculty Association wants fair share, it says furloughs and the back-to-work clause are far more important to them.
