After years of organizing, tenured and tenure-track faculty at Illinois State University have officially unionized.
The Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board in January recognized the United Faculty of Illinois State University, which is a chapter of University Professionals of Illinois (UPI Local 4100).
The union for tenured and tenure-track faculty joins a host of others on ISU's campus, including ones that represent non-tenure track faculty members and graduate student workers.
ISU associate professor Mark Zablocki spoke with WGLT about the the driving factors behind the union's formation and what's next.
Zablocki: We basically took the tact of having conversations with the main goal of having conversations with every single one of our faculty members on campus. Despite our best efforts, we didn't reach every single faculty member, but we reached a vast majority of them. We have a saying that many hands make light work, so we had a lot of folks having these conversations.
I think a couple of things came out of that — one is that we really kind of broke out of our silos a little bit. We have seven colleges, numerous departments, and it was interesting to hear some of the same issues coming up over and over, no matter what department we went to or whoever we talked to. I think, secondly, it was just a really great way to establish a strong network by developing those relationships across colleges, across departments.
WGLT: What were some of those issues that kept coming up in those conversations with other faculty members?
Zablocki: Number one was salary and compensation. Being able to get steady raises, cost-of-living increases and dealing with salary compression — that’s when faculty wages stagnate. So what happens is somebody who has been here for 20 years might only be making just a little bit more than somebody who was recently hired. If raises are not keeping pace with the market value of incoming employees, that’s kind of what happens: You see a kind of shrinkage of the difference between salaries. Salary inversion happens when it takes it to the extreme where somebody gets hired at a higher salary than somebody who has been there for a number of years. Those are issues that we are planning to talk about negotiate on.
WGLT: Is there a sense that other universities are more competitive with faculty salaries than ISU might be?
Zablocki: Well, one thing we learned is that we were among the lowest paid faculty in the state. I think one of the outcomes of this will be a fair contract that is comparable with other institutions.
WGLT: Did you expect that when you heard that?
Zablocki: No, I did not. I was a little bit surprised, but then we looked at the numbers and it was like, “Yeah. OK.” So I think that was a driving issue as well. We’ve joined the University Professionals of Illinois Local 4100 that also includes seven other universities, so that will also enhance our collective power — especially at the state level. ISU has been underfunded in per pupil expenditures for a long time. We’ve talked with some state legislators and we’re hoping to help advocate for a higher level of funding.
WGLT: What other issues are on the minds of faculty and union members?
Zablocki: The second was workload. We have a lot of faculty members — almost 80% said they were working more than 40 hours a week with a third of those saying they were working more than 50 hours a week and it really impacted their ability to do research. So if we’re shifting to a more research-focused institution, that’s something that will need to be taken into consideration.
WGLT: Is that overload due to, like, a tension between teaching and research or other responsibilities?
Zablocki: There’s an overload of expectations in teaching, research and service. That can vary by department because everybody has their own ways that they evaluate faculty. But I think the biggest concern is an overload of teaching and service requirements which really hamper the ability of faculty to do the research they really want to do.
WGLT: When you gave a public comment about the union to the Board of Trustees at a meeting last week, you mentioned something about student mental health being an important advocacy point. Can you say more about that?
Zablocki: Faculty are the first contact that many students have with this institution. So if they’re unable to access resources on campus, like mental health services, or wellness, they may come to faculty and most of us are not trained in how to address mental health issues with students. When we hear stories about them having to wait for two months for an appointment and not being able to get in, if there was a potential crisis situation that’s concerning. We believe that as a faculty union, we can better advocate to get those resources for student mental health and wellness, as well as other support services they might need.
Zablocki: The third thing was workplace health and safety. We also learned that a little more than half of our members had witnessed or experienced workplace bullying or discrimination and we are wanting to strengthen the grievance process so that faculty feel they have a way to get accountability and be protected from that.
WGLT: What’s next? I assume contract negotiation.
Zablocki: We have three dates set up: the 28th, March 4 and 14. Like I said, building networks with folks across campus has been really enlightening, but also empowering and I’m very optimistic that we will come out of this with a fair and first contract for the tenure-track faculty union.
