NORMAL (25News Now) - With the possibility of a strike less than a week away, union bargainers for 650 tenured and tenure-track faculty members at Illinois State University said they made some progress after 13 hours of talks with the administration on Friday, with many more hours of negotiations planned this coming week.
The result was what the union said was a win on non-economic issues with tentative agreements reached on workload and assignment of duties.
The union said it achieved protections to stop so called “workload creep” without being compensated for extra work. Also, teachers will know what courses they’ll be teaching by May 15 for the fall semester and Dec. 1 for the spring semester. Teachers will be consulted if changes need to be made after those dates.
In a release, the university reported it made an “improved” economic offer of higher pay when faculty are promoted. Teachers who have been promoted associate professor or professor during their time at ISU would get $2,000 to their annual base salaries.
ISU said instructors promoted in the future from assistant to associate professor would see their salaries increase by $7,500, from the current $5,000 raise, and those promoted to full professor would get a $10,000 increase, from the current $8,000 raise.
The bargaining teams were originally scheduled to meet two times next week. Now, they’ve agreed to four meetings before April 4, which is the first day that faculty can legally walk off their jobs.
Those sessions will not be with the federal mediator because the U.S. government has ended support to public sector negotiations through the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
“While good progress was made with the mediator’s support, the University believes the parties have developed a productive working relationship that will allow negotiations to continue without the involvement of a mediator as Illinois State and the Union move toward contract resolution,” ISU said in a statement.
Friday was the 44th negotiating session between the university administration and Faculty United ISU, the union representing tenured and tenure-track faculty.
