Be prepared

Days without a contract: 489.

8:00 PM Wednesday: General Four Local Solidarity Rally

Attending this meeting is the best way to get the latest news and to find out how you can help in the event a strike goes forward. We all still hope a strike can be avoided, but the best way to end a strike quickly would be to start it strong. If you can’t make the meeting, check this website for the latest updates, and be prepared to come join us at the picket line Thursday morning. If there’s a strike, we’ll be at the major entrances to campus bright and early.

Getting ready

This would be an excellent time to review the Strike FAQ found on this site.  Faculty (and others) may find additional useful information on the FA’s Strike FAQ page.  Striking workers could be denied access to SIUC email accounts (and presumably other things one accesses via DAWG tag, including the library) and could also be locked out of offices. And any materials instructors leave in their offices (or online) could be used by a strikebreaker hired to teach your class.  So consider the following:

Halloween Strike Edition

DAYS WITHOUT A CONTRACT: 488

Happy Halloween! Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year so you’ll forgive me if I take time out of union-related news to wish everyone a good time tonight.

That said! Union news! We’re just at about 60 hours (rounded) until the strike deadline and preparations for the possibility of a strike continue. We all hope it can be avoided but should a strike be necessary union leadership wants to make sure it’s successful.

What can you do?

If you haven’t already, JOIN! Each new union member is a message to the university administration to do better and to settle this in a fair and mutual manner.

If you have already joined (or even if you haven’t!), get in touch with your union leadership for more information on what you can do to volunteer and get active. There are a lot of jobs for people who are willing, from being on the front lines as picket captains to providing support for picketers at comfort stations or at the strike headquarters.

We’re also interested in what you have to say! We’ll be taking video testimonials – “I don’t want to strike but I will because…” – tomorrow at the strike headquarters from 12:30-2:30pm and 4:00-6:00pm. If you’re interested in having your two cents featured, join us!

There will also be a mass meeting Wednesday night at the strike headquarters at 8pm. While we all hope the news there will be “tentative agreements reached for all for unions!” this will be a last chance to get informed about strike plans and organization, in case the news isn’t so good.

Finally, I took a ton of pictures on Friday of the strike headquarters open house (including several of the amazing mural in one of the classrooms). You can check them out here in our flickr account.

Carbondale Council Member supports SIUC Unions

DAYS WITHOUT A CONTRACT: 487

Below you’ll find a news release put out by Carbondale City Council Member Jane Adams on Saturday.

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29 October 2011

CARBONDALE CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JANE ADAMS IN SOLIDARITY WITH SIU UNIONS

Carbondale City Council Member Jane Adams has expressed her solidarity with the four SIU unions as the deadline for strike action approaches.

“SIU is Carbondale’s anchor,” Adams said. “A large proportion of our citizens are employed by the university. It is the economic engine for Southern Illinois.”

A majority of these employees are represented by the four unions that, for 16 months, have not had a contract with the university. That is unacceptable. This impasse destabilizes the lives of SIUC’s students and our entire region.

“During the many years I worked at SIU I was first a member the civil service employees union and, later, the Faculty Association. I know how deeply committed these employees are to the students and to the university. I have been through several bargaining cycles and have always known the unions to bargain in good faith.”

Adams said, “It is crucial to our city and to the university that agreement be reached before the strike deadline. But if employees’ reasonable goals are not addressed, their right to refuse to continue to work without a contract must be honored.”

The Chancellor’s Friday Night Special

When you attempt to distract people from the real issues by trotting out legalisms, it’s best to get them right.

The Chancellor sent out an email at 5:30 Friday night claiming that SIUC unions had been misleading people by saying that they’d been working without a contract. (The full text of the email can be found at the end of this posting.) The most important point here is that the Chancellor is attempting to avoid the substance of the disagreements between her administration and the unions–the matters being negotiated at the bargaining table–by making irrelevant and misleading legalistic attacks. I’ll attempt below the break to explain just why the Chancellor’s email is misleading.

I think the only part of her email worth responding to above the fold is this.  The Chancellor once again chides the unions for failing to submit her imposed terms to votes by their membership. The elected representatives of those unions decided in the spring that no such vote was necessary, as the terms were clearly unacceptable. This fall, however, all four locals did hold votes. These votes did not only reject the Chancellor’s proposed agreement, but authorized a strike to contest them. That’s a pretty strong vote of support for their unions–and rejection of the Chancellor’s proposals. In case she’s forgotten, here’s how those votes turned out:

NTT FA: 83% in favor of strike authorization.
GA United: 97% in favor of strike authorization.
FA:  92% in favor of strike authorization.
ACsE: 80% in favor of strike authorization.

Perhaps the elected representatives of the unions understood the wishes of their constituents a bit better than the Chancellor does.

Six Days

DAYS WITHOUT A CONTRACT: 485

As regular readers noticed, I did get some help on the blog! You can expect new voices from now on. And, as we get closer to the strike date, more frequent communications. I usually tried to post once a day — now you may be seeing three or four posts a day as we get more information.

We’re having the open house tonight, which will include the most up-to-date information from bargaining. I know GAU is bargaining until 4pm in the afternoon — right before the open house — so the information won’t get any more up-to-date than that. The map to the strike headquarters is here and the open house is from 4:30-6:30, with the brief bargaining updates at 5pm.

None of us want to go on strike. We’d rather be in our classrooms or our offices doing the real work of the university — making sure teaching and research is happening. We’ve been pushed to this point by an administration that seems unwilling to move on anything — even the “minor” issues which have nothing to do with money and everything to do with making employee lives easier. This is not the university climate I remember from when I started here in 2007 and that really disheartens me. I decided to stay at SIUC for my PhD instead of going somewhere else because I liked the institution so much. I liked the people in my department, I enjoyed the education I was receiving, I really liked teaching undergraduates or doing research as part of my assistantship, and it felt like everyone I knew was happy here.

That’s changed. I’ve seen the strain the changes at the university have put on the faculty and staff and other graduate assistants/students in my department. I’ve seen the hardship the labor situation has put on everyone.

But on the other hand, I’ve never seen so much activism on campus as I have this year. People are upset and agitated — and willing to do something about it. Despite the strike countdown, despite the morale problem, despite how hard it’s been, that upsurge in activism is reason to hope.

Mutual aid and protection

Illinois law gives educational employees the legal right to refuse to do work in place of employees who are on strike. The legal term for this right is “mutual aid and protection”.  So long as you are working in concert with at least one other employee, you needn’t do anything outside your normal job duties. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re in the union or not, or even you are in job classification represented by a union or not–so long as you’re not classified as “executive/managerial” staff. You can just say no. Details are in the document embedded below. This document has been vetted by the IEA legal staff. They are not ones to go out on a limb.

View this document on Scribd

Open House and Bargaining Report Friday

This is largely a duplicate of AJ’s post below, but she may have been guilty of burying the lead, and I’ve now got a bit more detail.  All four locals invited all in their bargaining units (not just members) to an open meeting starting at 4:30 at the old Carbondale High School. A brief report on bargaining will take place around 5:00, and there will be refreshments.

Designated hitter number 2 says did the Cards win? I don’t know I’ve been bargaining

This post is from AJ Stoner, president of the NTT FA. I was on the bargaining team and then was elected president, so I am juggling many roles. Tonight (or, this morning) I am keeping a promise to Kristi.

Here’s some of today’s Coalition news as reported to me.

The Coalition is hosting an Open House at the Strike Headquarters, located in the old Carbondale High School, Friday from 4:30-7.

 
Looking for Volunteers:

• Facilities management needs one or two folks to help clean up a couple rooms at the Strike HQ. Contact your local facilities committee member or Dave at fada169(at)yahoo(dot)com.
• We have several volunteers already and still need several more to become Squad Leaders. Squad Leaders can attend either of two one-hour training sessions at the Strike HQ, Saturday at 1 and Tuesday at 6 p.m. Contact George georgerbricker(at)yahoo(dot)com if you can help.
• There also are some “low profile opportunities” for volunteers who consider themselves more vulnerable for whatever reason. Contact your local president for more information.

Upcoming events

• Thursday October 27, 10am-4pm: Information Table in the Student Center
• Thursday October 27, 5-6pm, Student Center Ballroom A: Open Meeting for International Graduate Assistants
• Thursday November 3rd, 12:01am: Strike Date for the Association of Civil Service Employees, Faculty Association, Graduate Assistants United, and Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association

Oh and I almost forgot, a little red bird told me that the World Series was rained out.

Budgets and negotiations

DAYS WITHOUT A CONTRACT: 483

Kristi has at last managed to recruit some help on this blog, and I’ve chosen to inaugurate my new helping role here by (a) posting one day later than promised and (b) tooting my own horn.  I’ve stepped back from my more independent voice over at deo volente (where Jonny Gray is now doing a great job as lead blogger) as I’ve been named a spokesperson for the FA (as Kristi has been named one for GA United).

I appeared on WSIU’s “morning conversation” show this morning and discussed bargaining issues related to the FA. Jennifer Fuller is a great interviewer, and is up on campus issues, but even she bought into one false premise about campus finances, the notion that SIUC has less money to spend this year than last. The loss of 100 students did indeed cost us some revenue in tuition and fees, but the overall amount of tuition and fees will rise, thanks to the increased amount students are being asked to pay. And this increase in revenue will more than offset the 1% decline in funding from the state this year.

The DE ran a story today on the backlog of payments owed SIUC and other state universities. President Poshard noted the particularly dire scenario that would face us if the state decided that it was not merely going to delay payments but cut payments drastically. It’s no surprise, as negotiations come down to the wire, that the administration is emphasizing the financial side of things, by stressing how bad the present budgetary situation is and by vividly portraying how bad it could become. We all know that the economy is in tough shape, that state faces a steep budget deficit, and that the state’s troubles have impacted SIUC. But the unions aren’t only, or even mainly, looking for financial gains.

Rather, union proposals are designed to help SIUC meet a future financial crisis. Our goal is to bargain a transparent and accountable process that will allow SIUC to adjust to meet such a genuine crisis (I am thinking particularly of the FA’s proposals, with which I am most familiar, but I think similar thinking applies pretty much across the board). We will be far better off if we have a policy in place that unions and administration agree on. If we fail to have such a policy in place, and a genuine financial crisis hits us, the damage to SIUC won’t only be financial, but could result in a truly dire hit to campus morale. The administration, on the other hand, seems to expect that unions will simply cede to them the power to impose cuts in salaries and jobs as they see fit. That would result in controversy, tension, and morale cuts that would make those of last spring seem minor in comparison.

Missing from the DE story is the next step in the analysis.  All state universities are facing cuts in state appropriations. But some are doing rather better than others when it comes to adapting to those cuts. How can SIUC be more like the successful state universities and less like the unsuccessful ones?  Illinois State, for example, managed to offer faculty raises averaging 3% for FY 2012, and to raise departmental budgets by 2%–rather than cutting such budgets, as SIUC has done.  I don’t have any inside scoop as to how ISU has managed to weather this storm so much better than we have (but it’s not thanks to a huge increase in enrollment: their enrollment has been essentially flat in recent years), nor do I have the time to fully study how other Illinois universities are dealing with this difficult situation. Our sister campus, SIUE, managed to offer faculty and staff a 2.5% raise in FY 2011–the very year SIUC cut salaries via “unpaid administrative closures”. SIUC, like all other Illinois public universities, faces a difficult state budget. But that doesn’t require us to move resources out of academics–away from faculty, staff, and GAs–and into other areas.

Upcoming events

Thursday October 27, 10am-4pm: Tabling in the Student Center
Thursday October 27, 5-6pm, Student Center Ballroom A: Open Meeting for International Graduate Assistants
Thursday November 3rd, 12:01am: Strike Date for the Association of Civil Service Employees, Faculty Association, Graduate Assistants United, and Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association

 

And Then There Were Four

DAYS WITHOUT A CONTRACT: 481

GAU just finished their meeting: we announced our intention to strike at 12:01am Thursday November 3 if no tentative agreement has been reached. You can read our release regarding this on our website.

This isn’t a move any of us take lightly. We plan to use the next 10 days to try and do everything we can to avert a strike by increasing membership, increasing calls for activism, increasing asking people to contact the administration to tell them to do better.

But we need to be prepared to do what is necessary to make sure that education — and the people who provide it — is the top priority at SIUC. And that may require a strike.

As always, if you haven’t let these folks know how you feel, give them a call or send them an email:

Ms. Misty Whittington
Executive Secretary of the Board
Office of the Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees
(618) 536-3357

Rita Cheng: rcheng@siu.edu
SIUC Chancellor
(618) 453-2341

Glenn Poshard: poshard@siu.edu
SIU President
(618) 536-3357

Upcoming Events:
Tuesday October 25, 12pm-4pm: Tabling in the Student Center
Wednesday October 26, 10am-4pm: Tabling in the Student
Thursday October 27, 10am-4pm: Tabling in the Student Center
Thursday October 27, 5-6pm, Student Center Ballroom A: Open Meeting for International Graduate Assistants
Thursday November 3rd, 12:01am: Strike Date for the Association of Civil Service Employees, Faculty Association, Graduate Assistants United, and Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association