Nontenured, part-time staff to seek fair pay

October 16, 2002

By MATT BUEDEL
of the Journal Star

NORMAL - Representatives of nontenured and part-time faculty at Illinois State University are requesting a union election and Tuesday announced plans to seek fair pay and access to equal facilities at ISU.

The petition to form a union was filed by the Nontenure-Track Faculty Association with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, which will decide when the election will be held. The association organized in April after the Illinois Board of Higher Education approved a study that said most nontenured faculty in Illinois are satisfied with their working conditions.

"We’re hoping to come together with a collective voice so we can bargain with a position of equality with the administration," said Sharon MacDonald, a temporary history professor at ISU for more than three decades. "Right now, they can tell us everything about our employment, and we can take it or leave it."

To file the petition, the association needed 30 percent of the roughly 450 nontenured faculty to support the move. MacDonald said the response from nontenured faculty exceeded the necessary amount, and some tenured faculty and administrators have voiced encouragement.

MacDonald called the unionization process the best way to seek a pay standard and benefits and job security for faculty members who often have to work two or more jobs to make ends meet, and keep positive relations with the administration.

Gretchen Knapp, a nontenured history professor at ISU who is not teaching this semester, said the election will probably be held within four to six weeks.

She wants nontenured and part-time faculty to have office space, a phone and e-mail provided through the university. Knapp added nontenure-track professors also have no procedure to file a grievance.

MacDonald and Knapp said the changes they seek in policy will provide a more stable faculty and less turnover, which will, in turn, give better service to students.

"We have a lot of (nontenured) people who worked here a long time," Knapp said. "Right now, nontenure-track folk make up 40 percent of the faculty.

"When you look back at 1996, we made up about 25 percent of faculty."