Faculty and Staff vs. Administration

What will happen to students if faculty and staff go on a strike?  Raises in administration's salaries disturbed the faculty of Northeastern Illinois University, who haven't had a raise in nearly three years. Along with this, newly accepted freshmen of NEIU will have to pay the severe tuition hike.    

"For more than 20 years there has been a union. Most years past administration have gotten along with the union," said Prof. Therese Schuepfer head of the union on campus. Now, however, it seems like the current administration is not getting along with the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI), which is the union at NEIU for faculty and staff. The negotiations on signing the new contract have already been prolonged for two years. The contract spells out how faculty and staff are evaluated, what they do and how they are paid. More than 500 faculty and staff members are in this union, all of the tenured, or tenure-track, faculty and all instructors that taught more than five courses. Schuepfer said that the contract is negotiated before it expires, and that UPI is not trying to develop unrealistic contracts. The main articles that bargaining teams couldn't agree on are compensation, evaluation and work load. Not getting raises, but increasing the workload for the last three years, has brought a lot of bitterness among faculty and staff.

In the ongoing negotiations, the administrative team has been insisting on changing the language of the contract with UPI. For instance, a big disagreement has been the professional discipline language. "If they want to fire somebody, they want to be able to terminate him/her by simply holding a meeting, without giving any first or second notice," said Schuepfer. The UPI does not want this; they believe there should be a notice.

The negotiations began in May 2008 with training, where President Hahs was present, but then decided not to be part of the bargaining team. Since everyone still remembers how the negotiations from 2004 ended on the streets and disrupted many lives at NEIU, administration and UPI teams had agreed to try Interest Based Bargaining (IBB). IBB style of negotiation is where all the teams are trying to come up with decisions and resolve issues by brainstorming together. IBB style continued from May 2008 to Dec 2009, when agreement was reached on some articles.

"In late 2009, it became clear that the IBB style of bargaining wasn't going to lead to a successful conclusion and the administration and the UPI agreed to move to traditional bargaining," said Schuepfer. The traditional style is the process of sending proposals back and forth.

Moving to traditional bargaining, the NEIU administration hired an external law firm to assist the administrative team by leading the negotiations, something that cost the school $74, 150 dollars. Moreover, a stipend of $1000 dollars was paid to each member of the administrative team each month, which was later reduced to $750, and then again to $500, in July 2010. The total cost of the bargaining up until July 2010 is $249, 638, an outrageous amount in these tough economic times.                   

Faculty and staff, like most people in any profession today, see that in these economic hardships,  raises aren't possible, and they never expected huge raises. However, the expenses that NEIU administration accrued   by hiring a law firm and giving bonuses to all bargaining team members is not the only reason for faculty and staff's frustration. While talking about cuts in the budget and reduced funding to the university President Hahs recieved and many other administrators large raises. At the same time, for the last three years the faculty has received zero percent increase.  

"Nobody expected such raises in the administration and President Hahs' salary," said Schuepfer.

 Those raises were disclosed after the UPI made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Some people from administration have received raises more than 10 percent. President Hahs got a raise of $43, 256, which brings her total earnings in 2010 to $ 302, 543. This is almost $70, 000 above the median for public universities of our category (offering up to Master's degrees). On average, a president's salary is 2.89 times greater than that of a tenured professor in this category. In our case though, President Hahs' salary is 3.74 times greater than NEIU's tenured professors' salaries. On average, NEIU tenured professors make $79,200, and instructors $35,800. This, according to the American Association of University Professors salary survey, pushes our faculty to the bottom of the chart. In 65 percent of the universities, professors make more than NEIU professors make, and  95 percent of the instructors make more than instructors at NEIU.      

At the Town Hall Meeting, on Tuesday, Oct. 12, President Hahs recognized these facts and defended them by saying that the life of the school hasn't stopped and many people get promoted and deserve raises. She said, "My job is to try to keep the big picture."

The NEIU attorney recently recieved a raise of $40,000, more than what some faculty earn and President Hahs responded that his salary was low for an attorney of a university. So, the big picture is that while his salary is "low for an attorney of a university", NEIU faculty are the lowest paid in Illinois.

Now the negotiations are going to mediation. This means that the two teams will use a third party neutral mediator from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). Mediators' only tool is their power to persuade both parties in signing a settlement. Last time there were negotiations, in 2004, mediation was the last step and then the faculty and staff went on strike.

Obviously, upset and shaken by two years of negotiating, at the Town Hall Meeting Schuepfer said, "Everyone wants quality work, but they want it for cheap." President Hahs said that she is not allowed to discuss the bargaining, and she didn't answer many questions regarding the biggest issue on campus.

"We are making a commitment to education [and] you should not take advantage of us," said Schuepfer.