A new union representing employees at Illinois State University’s lab schools hopes to begin negotiating its first contract sometime this fall.
The Lab School Education Association [LSEA] represents around 125 employees at University High School and Metcalf School, both on the ISU campus. Around 1,000 students attend the two lab schools. LSEA earned certification this summer from the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board [ILERB].
“It was a moment of excitement, celebration, and then knowing that we’re gonna need to get ready to get to work,” said Meg Flanagan-Rudd, an English teacher at U-High and the LSEA’s newly-elected president.
LSEA is the latest in a wave of organizing on ISU’s campus, where more than half of all workers are now unionized.
Now that it’s certified, LSEA’s next steps are to get all members to fill out some forms, and to elect a bargaining team and building representatives, Flanagan-Rudd said. They hope to begin negotiating their first contract with ISU sometime this fall, although Flanagan-Rudd said they expect those negotiations to take awhile — possibly through the end of the 2025-26 school year.
“A few of us have talked with leaders of [other] campus labor unions, kind of asking, ‘What can we expect?’ So based on what they have said about their experiences, we're expecting this to last longer than maybe it needs to,” Flanagan-Rudd said.
As for LSEA’s top priorities in its first contract, Flanagan-Rudd pointed first to pay. She said it stung when ISU recently announced a 3.5% pay raise for non-union workers because she and the other lab school employees won’t be eligible for that now that they’re unionized.
“The lab schools are owed at least that much based on the work that [a] salary study has done. And so we will be at least starting there,” she said.
Other negotiating priorities, she said, will include addressing an imbalance in how many college clinical students are assigned to some lab school employees compared with others. The schools also serve ISU’s many teachers in training.
Appealing the union’s makeup
Contract negotiations could begin this fall even as ISU appeals the exact makeup of the bargaining unit.
ISU administration previously challenged LSEA’s push for recognition, claiming its mix of employees was not appropriate. ISU argued that some of the lab school employees are technically employed by the university and another employer — the Heart of Illinois Low Incidence Association, or HILIA. That’s a joint program that serves students with hearing and vision disabilities. ISU argued including HILIA employees would create an “inappropriate unit for collective bargaining.”
ILERB disagreed and sided with the union. ISU plans to appeal that decision to the Fourth District Appellate Court — a process that could play out this fall alongside contract talks.
An ISU spokesperson declined a request for comment, citing the pending appeal.
LSEA argues that ISU should not wait until the resolution of that case before starting negotiations on a first contract.
“They are legally required at this point to recognize us as a union, and to recognize us as the Labor Board has certified us,” said Ben Matthews, a staffer with the Illinois Education Association who's been supporting the lab school organizing effort. “So we anticipate, as soon as we have our folks in place and elected, filing a demand to bargain with the university, and we expect them to fulfill their legal obligation to sit down at the bargaining table with us, and they are required then to bargain with us, even while the appeal is playing out.”
This is at least the second recent unionization effort that’s gone to the courts. In a separate case, ISU appealed the ILERB-approved makeup of an AFSCME bargaining unit, saying that certain food court/snack bar supervisors should not be represented. The appellate court sided with ISU in July, sending the case back to the ILERB for another look.
