During this forty-fourth negotiation session, the parties signed three tentative agreements covering Workload, Assignment of Duties, and Identification of Union Representatives. During this session, the University presented improvements to its previous economic proposal. Discussion and clarifying questions/responses continued around unresolved topics.

Key takeaways from the March 28, 2025, negotiation session, include:
1) The University and the Union reached tentative agreements on three outstanding noneconomic issues—Workload, Assignment of Duties, and Identification of Union Representatives. Workload was recognized by the Union as an area of significant concern and the parties worked diligently to come to a mutually agreeable resolution. With these tentative agreements, the parties have resolved almost all noneconomic issues, and the focus is now primarily on economic issues such as compensation and parental leave.    

2) In addition to the negotiation sessions previously scheduled for Wednesday, April 2 and Friday, April 4, two additional negotiation sessions have been scheduled for Tuesday, April 1 and Thursday, April 3.   

3) This session was conducted directly between the University and the Union without the involvement of the Federal mediator, following implementation of a March 14, 2025, Executive Order that significantly reduced the scope and size of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) and ended support to public-sector negotiations. While good progress was made with the mediator’s support, the University believes the parties have developed a productive working relationship that will allow negotiations to continue without the involvement of a mediator as Illinois State and the Union move toward contract resolution.

The University’s IMPROVED economic offer provides promotional increases, noted below:

• A $2,000 increase to annual base salaries of all current Professors who were promoted from the rank of Associate Professor during their tenure at Illinois State, effective on first day of the first full month after ratification.

• A $2,500 increase to annual base salaries of all current Associate Professors who were promoted from the rank of Assistant Professor during their tenure at Illinois State, effective on first day of the first full month after ratification.

• IMPROVED: Moving forward, Illinois State will award promotional salary increases of $7,500 (currently, $5,000) to those being promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor and $10,000 (currently, $8,000) to those being promoted from Associate to Professor.  

The next negotiation date is scheduled for Tuesday, April 1, 2025.  

Additional information will be made available on the University’s negotiations status website, following a planned vendor outage by the website provider, no later than March 31.