The faculty and staff at Governors State University will begin striking Tuesday, joining two other state universities on the picket lines this month.
Members of GSU University Professionals of Illinois decided to strike after an eight-hour bargaining session Thursday resulted in what they described as “another inadequate offer from the university.”
“There was no sense of urgency,” GSU UPI President Mike Hart said in a statement. “The university wouldn’t agree to bargain further to avert a strike. Our members are among the lowest paid in the state. The increase they’re offering wouldn’t cover a year’s worth of gas to drive to work.”
Among the issues on the table are raises for faculty members and demanding workloads affecting the level of service academic support professionals can provide to students.
“We have some heavy workloads and because some advisers have 500 or more students, it’s hard to dedicate time to each student individually,” Carla Johnson, a graduate academic adviser and vice president of academic support professionals in the union, said in an interview Friday. “It’s hard to build relationships with students when your time is limited, and we want to serve our students better — that’s one of the reasons we’re standing together with the faculty.”
Johnson said advisers should get raises, and more advisers should be hired.
“We don’t have the advising staff we need to service our students and many of us go home only to turn our computers back on to get caught up on work,” she said.
With the end of the semester near, students often need more one-on-one time with advisers to help balance their continuing education plans and personal goals, Johnson said. Going on strike puts a “huge burden on them,” she said.
GSU officials, who did not respond to requests for comment Friday, have been bargaining with the union since June and entered mediation in December. After taking a strike vote, union members filed their intent to strike on March 27.
“We’re not close,” Johnson said. “We are dealing with inflation right now — gas prices are up, prices of eggs are up, and we pay the same prices that administrators who get better salaries than us pay.”
At Thursday’s bargaining session, the administration walked away from the table while union members were willing to stay put until a deal was reached, Johnson said. However, the union was able to negotiate a tentative agreement for 25 days of parental leave.
The next bargaining session is scheduled for Wednesday, but GSU UPI officials said they would gladly return to the table beforehand.
A similar situation occurred at Eastern Illinois University when the administration ended a bargaining session earlier than anticipated on Monday. The 450 faculty and staff members who make up Eastern Illinois University UPI went on strike Thursday.
“We managed to narrow our differences down to less than $900,000 per year over the length of the contract,” said Billy Hung, EIU UPI’s lead negotiator and an associate professor of microbiology. “In dollar amount, we are not that far apart. We came a lot closer than we have before in just one day and we were caught off guard when they wanted to stop.”
Hung said Friday that the union was back to bargaining “and will continue to as late as needed, for as long as needed until both sides can make meaningful progress.”
Union members are not providing their course materials to other faculty members to teach their respective classes while on strike, he noted.
“I already talked to my students outside of class time about what would happen if we go on strike and what will happen when I come back,” he said, adding that the union wanted to avoid a strike from the get-go.
EIU UPI and university officials have been bargaining for more than a year, and the faculty and staff have been working without a contract since September. EIU officials could not be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, Thursday marked the third bargaining session in a row during which UPI members at Chicago State University and CSU’s administration failed to reach an agreement after members went on strike Monday. The strike will continue after the weekend, with an additional bargaining session slated for Monday afternoon.
“Our faculty and staff are tired of this administration’s claims that they value us and our students when their actions repeatedly prove otherwise,” said Valerie Goss, a chemistry professor and the president of CSU UPI. “The plan is always to be optimistic, but both parties are still pretty far apart. Our side, from the beginning, has said we don’t want to be on strike.”
While union faculty members are on strike, classes, labs and university support are mostly functioning as expected, CSU officials said, advising students to attend all classes and labs unless told they are canceled.
CSU UPI members said CSU President Zaldwaynaka Scott — who has not been present at any bargaining sessions — received a 16% salary increase in the 2022-23 academic year, yet the administration refuses to offer employees even modest gains. In a statement, the CSU administration disputed the union’s claims.
“At this point, the Union has not shared with the University how they have calculated this increase, the number is inaccurate,” officials said. “President Scott was hired in 2018 to help transform and renew the University. In 2022, in recognition of her initial success, she was offered, and accepted, another four-year contract with CSU.”
CSU officials added that the board of trustees determined Scott’s four-year contract should include a one-time salary increase of 7.6%, which calculates to less than a 2% increase a year to her salary.
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According to Scott’s 2022 contract obtained by the Tribune, her annual base salary is $425,000 with a discretionary bonus not to exceed $25,000.
On Wednesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker touted his administration’s multimillion-dollar investments in higher education during a news conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. But when the Tribune asked his office afterward about its ability to tout these investments while strikes loom at the other universities, his office blamed past administrations for poor handling of the state budget.
“The underfunding and mismanagement of our state’s budget by prior administrations has left public colleges and universities across the state limited options to continue providing critical access to higher education,” Pritzker’s office said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “It takes time to repair years of damage and underfunding, and many universities continue to feel that loss. The Governor supports making college more affordable for working families and is working alongside partners in the General Assembly to continue to rebuild these vital institutions.”
Governors State, Chicago State and Eastern Illinois all serve special student populations. CSU is the state’s only predominantly Black institution and one of few nationwide that offers four-year degree programs, while GSU is a minority serving institution and emerging Hispanic serving institution. And according to the Illinois Federation of Teachers, EIU is a rural institution and essential to the vitality of the surrounding community.
“At campuses across Illinois, faculty and staff are telling university administrators that they need to get their priorities straight,” added John Miller, president of the University Professionals of Illinois, the local union for the CSU, EIU and GSU chapters, in a statement. “The presidents of these universities have the resources to provide what students, faculty and staff need, but are investing in other priorities. Our members are standing up for our students.”
Chicago Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner contributed.
