FA News: COVID #2
March 19, 2020
A new set of recommendations is available here:
Filed under 2019-2020 Newsletters
March 11, 2020 by Dave Johnson
Here is the latest addition of the FA news–an update on the COVID-19 crisis.
I am also doing email list maintenance. If you want to receive FA newsletters and announcements, drop me a line at dmj2@me.com.
Filed under 2019-2020 Newsletters
December 10, 2019 by Dave Johnson
This edition includes an announcement about an election, quick report on bargaining, then longer commentary on some recent events.
1. Election. It’s time for FA members to elect someone to serve as a delegate to the IEA Regional Assembly, the body that sets IEA policies (including dues). Our colleague Jacob Haubenreich has agreed to put his name forward, and we need to hold an election to ensure we are represented at the Assembly. To vote, stop by my office in Faner (2037) any time between 9:30 and 1:30 on Monday. If you are an FA member and will be on campus on Monday, please consider coming by to vote.
Filed under 2019-2020 Newsletters
October 22, 2019 by Dave Johnson
Filed under 2019-2020 Newsletters
September 12, 2019 by Dave Johnson
Here’s a letter we sent to the SIU Board of Trustees on September 12, 2019, in response to the plan to provide no raises to faculty at SIUC for FY 2020.
Filed under 2019-2020 Newsletters, News
August 30, 2019 by Dave Johnson
The first two newsletters came in the form of emails; they are pasted below.
Dear colleagues,
Dear colleagues,
In lieu of a more traditional welcome back message, I should address the mailings going around from the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank funded by former Illinois governor Bruce Rauner and his allies. The mailings give a false picture of the IEA’s spending and priorities. I attach an IEA rebuttal flier, which rather effectively demolishes the IPI’s claims in the postcard that’s been landing in some mailboxes. For the IEA’s own reckoning of where dues are spent, follow this link:
https://wp.me/a1vTtf-ww
The IPI’s mailings are a sign of desperation rather than strength. The IPI/Rauner anti-union agenda has failed in Illinois, despite the victory handed to them by the Trump Supreme Court in the Janus case, which made it illegal for unions to bargain fair share agreements with public employers (something the SIU administration has always refused to do in any event). As a matter of fact, membership in the NEA has gone up since the Janus case, as has membership in AFSCME. Union members are not quitting in droves, nor are unions suffering, as anti-union activists hoped–rather the opposite. And of course Rauner was beaten decisively in his re-election campaign by J. B. Pritzker, a candidate endorsed by the IEA.
Here are some things the FA and IEA have been working on over the summer.
The FA has formed bargaining teams to address conflict of interest policies and to do impact bargaining to protect faculty members’ interests in areas where restructuring has been approved (including tenure and promotion policies). Negotiations on both topics will start early in the fall semester. Our thanks to the colleagues who have volunteered to take part in this vital work.
We are in the early stages of “full book” negotiations on a new contract. The FA bargaining team and administration bargaining team did a joint training session early this summer, and both sides have committed to an “interest-based bargaining” approach. In this approach the two sides aim to find mutually acceptable results based on each side’s interests, rather than engaging in “positional bargaining,” in which each side enters with a position and tries to push the other side to accept it. Bargaining will be facilitated by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which provides more information on this approach here: https://www.fmcs.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Interest-Based-Bargaining.pdf
The IEA lobbied on behalf of the bill recently signed by Governor Pritzker to give both student trustees a vote on the SIU Board of Trustees. The bill had previously been vetoed by Governor Rauner. The FA supports this move. In our experience, student trustees have been more consistently engaged and more willing to ask the hard questions than most other members of the board. And by consistently giving a student from each campus a vote, the bill will make it easier to balance the interests of SIUC and SIUE, something vital if the SIU system is to thrive.
We have seen a sea change in Illinois since the IPI agenda was repudiated by the election of Governor Pritzker, who has worked with the legislature to renew Illinois’ commitment to funding public universities and providing MAP grants for students. SIUC still faces huge challenges, above all in declining enrollment, but had Rauner been re-elected, our situation will be far worse.
So the FA is working on behalf of faculty here in Carbondale, and the IEA is supporting us and working to promote public higher education in Springfield. The IPI providing the free advice to faculty now is the same outfit that backed Rauner when he denied public universities state funding, driving students away from Illinois, and doing untold damage to universities across the state. I for one think the choice between the IPI and the IEA ought to be pretty clear for all of us who support public higher education in Illinois.
Filed under 2019-2020 Newsletters