Nearly 100 voices consisting of the United Faculty of Illinois State University rose in protest. The members came with repetitive, frustrated efforts delivered through chanting to get ISU President Tarhule to bargain with the United Faculty over a financial proposal.
The protest began at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 20 on the ISU Quad. The protestors gathered near the bell to begin chanting statements expressing their exhaustion trying to get Tarhule to talk about their financial proposal.
Mathematics professor Fusun Akman outlined the union’s demands.
“We have been bargaining since February as the tenure track union, and we [had] given them a full financial proposal on February 28. So far, they have refused to bargain [on] any one of the economic items,” Akman said.
Akman explained that the union wants mediation to resolve the proposals, but the lawyer of the ISU administration team said they did not believe it was necessary. At the rally Wednesday, the United Faculty gave a letter to Tarhule that asked him to come back to the table and talk about financial items.
“The financial picture that they are painting is, in one word, ridiculous,” Akman said.
The university is sitting on $650 million and is hiding it with creative accounting, according to Ackman. Akman said that it is frustrating for presentations, such as the RISE open forums, to be held and then continue to be told that the faculty does not understand the financial issues at stake.
“It’s demeaning, it’s disingenuous, it’s not true,” Ackman said. “We understand how to read financial statements. We just want them to come back to the table so they can talk to us about it, not just make up these stories and say, ‘We’re not in good shape.’ austerity is totally unnecessary at this point; it really is ridiculous.”
Keith Pluymers, an associate professor from the Department of History, highlighted key issues that the university administration has not answered. The significant issues included workload, family leave, sabbatical leave and student mental health support.
Pluymers said that the faculty does their job because they love working with students. He said that they understand the issues that students face, affecting a student’s ability to learn and affecting faculty working conditions.
“We want to use the power of our contract negotiations to improve this university, not just for ourselves, but for everyone,” Pluymers said.
Faculty members at the protest explained that they had given the administration a fully costed-out economic proposal which explains exactly how much every item in the contract would cost. According to Pluymers, the administration seems willing to talk about economics everywhere but not regarding the bargaining table.
“It’s time to stop stalling. It’s time to put across fair, honest proposals that address the real issues of compensation, workload [and] adequate funding for things like research travel,” Pluymers said. “Faculty shouldn’t be having to reach into our own pockets to fund our research and conference travel.”
In the future, the United Faculty looks to keep bargaining in “good faith.” Their goal is to get the administration to understand that the members are ready to do whatever it takes to get a fair contract.
“We don’t want to see anything that could disrupt students learning experience, but we’re not ready to be pushed around,” Pluymers said.
