On February 26, members of the United Faculty of Illinois State University (UF) Professor Keith Pluymers and assistant history professor Camille Cole discussed the yearly progress made by UF. The conversation began with talk of the bargaining process between UF and the Board of Trustees at ISU. The organization has been bargaining for over a year as they celebrated the anniversary on Feb. 27, the following day. Pluymers explained that in fall 2023, UF initiated a process called the “majority interest” petition. This advocated that Illinois unions could become officially certified as the exclusive bargaining agent for a group of workers. The labor union approved the petition Jan. 8, 2024, and UF bargaining officially began February 2024. Even after school let out in May, UF bargained all through the summer, even with a majority of students and faculty gone. The hope of a formidable contract being crafted was, and still is, the goal. During the past fall semester, tentative agreements between UF and the Board of Trustees were reached, but no signs of ratifying a full contract were shown. According to Pluymers, when UF develops a tentative agreement on all the articles of the contract, it will be sent out to all members of the organization to do a ratification vote. “The decision lies within the members to see if they think [the contract] is good enough to ratify, and then the Board of Trustees sign it on the behalf of ISU,” Pluymers said. Cole explained the course of action that was taken in December. This included the bargaining team requesting a federal mediator to come and help in the process of bargaining. A federal mediator, according to Pluymers, is an impartial individual who works for federal mediation and conciliation services: a small branch of the federal gov that sends in an independent individual who will listen to both sides. The position of the mediator was to make suggestions to try to help find places of agreement. Cole reported there had been more tentative agreements because of the mediator’s involvement. “We’ve TA’d [tentatively agreed on] some really hard articles that have taken months of bargaining. I think at least one case may have been 10-12 rounds of back-and-forth on proposals,” Pluymers said. Although the agreements have been considered a success for UF, the patience of members grows weary towards important topics that have not been addressed. “There are a couple of things that are really important that are still outstanding that really matter to faculty including leave policies, parental leave policies and also [resources] for students,” Cole said. “One of the things we have been trying to bargain on is increased access to resources for student mental health, and the administration team has refused to even talk about that.” One of the most successful mediation days took place on Jan. 31, when tentative agreements were reached on six items. The most important item in the eyes of UF included the Grievance and Arbitration article. More simply put, the UF mechanism to call out the university for violating an article of the bargaining contract is called the grievance process. From there, the grievance runs through a process that reaches a neutral arbitrator that has the power to render a judgment. Whatever the arbitrator lands on is the ultimatum of the situation. For UF, the grievance was sent in and discussed over the summer, and the arbitration was resolved on Feb. 28 after nearly eight months of bargaining. The end of February brought forth a single goal for March. “Our hope is to get a tentative agreement for the entire contract,” Pluymers said. “We want to be able to bring to the membership a complete TA that they are going to feel great about.” The ultimatum will remain in the hands of the Board of Trustees. UF has found that attending Board of Trustees’ meetings for public comments have been helpful towards making negotiation progress. However, the majority of the discussion continues to remain at the bargaining table between the two organizations. One concern that was addressed was the potential of professors and faculty going on strike in the case of negotiations not being met. Pluymers explained that the reason for a lot of the signs on the door is due to a majority of the members expressing concern that important issues have been moving slowly, and there have not been responses that indicated a desire to get to an agreement quickly. “There’s real frustration there. What’s really unfortunate is that sometimes in the course of labor negotiation that management, in this case a university administration, wants to test to see how far things go before getting serious, we would just prefer to get serious right away,” Pluymers said. This is not the path that Pluymers, Cole or any of ISU’s faculty want to take. Both professors expressed that they do their job to teach students who have dreams and are inspired to take their careers further in life. “When we see students who have a dream—whether it’s journalism, being a history teacher, when we watch them we can see that they are on the path towards reaching that dream. That's what is special to us,” Pluymers said. As for students, UF has become a well-known organization to those curious. Pluymers and Cole both agree that the classroom is a safe space for students to learn, and all questions about UF are able to be discussed outside of work hours. “I think some students are really interested in paying attention to what is going on, and some students have other priorities,” Cole said. Pluymers and Cole both agreed that students are more than welcome to reach out via email if they want to know more or have any questions about UF. At the end of the conversation, Pluymers and Cole thanked everyone who has supported, worked closely with, or simply expressed interest in the work of UF. “We appreciate the interest from students in what is going on here. The fact that students care and are concerned—it means the world to us,” Pluymers said. “We went into bargaining not just to win things for UF but to take wins for the university as a whole,” Cole said.