• Organizing Committee
• How To Reach Us
• Brief History

• About NTTs at ISU
• Why Support the
  NTT-FA
• Frequently Asked Questions
• A Comparison of Benefits

• Other NTT unions
• Illinois State University
• Illinois Education Association
• National Educational Association

Our Position...

We feel strongly about the need for a union at Illinois State University.  Please read this article to see why it is important to Unionize NOW!

Home

ISU NTT FA Election Campaign Talking Points:  Rights, Respect, Recognition! 

• NTTs deserve respect.  Nontenure track faculty compose over 40% of all classroom teachers at ISU. We are university instructors.  Nearly all of us hold advanced degrees, and many of us hold terminal degrees.  We deserve a more prominent role in the university community.
• NTTs need pay equity.  NTTs should be paid proportionately to our work on campus:  If NTTs perform 80% of the duties of T/TT faculty, NTT pay should be 80% of T/TT faculty pay.
• NTT working conditions are student learning conditions:  We need timely notification of teaching appointments so we can properly prepare classes.  We need fair compensation so we can focus our energies on ISU students rather than spread ourselves thin over several jobs.  Students win when their professors are treated right.

Committing to vote for the union will let us improve pay and working conditions. 

• A union contract virtually guarantees:

*  timely notification of reappointment 
*  increased pay
*  a fair procedure for resolving grievances 
*  inclusion of NTTs in decisions that affect us

• Union = improvements NOW!  With a large pay equity problem, AFSCME won raises of 6.1% for ISU's clericals in the 2002-2003 year.  Voting for the union will bring those changes now, not at some distant point in the future, when administrators decide it's time to act.
   
• Union = job security. Columbia College NTTs just negotiated their second contract, and it includes real job security for NTTs.  After a probationary period, NTTs are automatically re-employed; the days of "non-renewal" are over!
   
• Join a nationwide movement. NTT faculty at Columbia College, Roosevelt University and the College of DuPage have all organized unions with the IEA-NEA in the past five years.  NTTs are organizing nationwide, including 1,600 at NYU who voted for a union just this summer, recognizing that the way to gain respect for our work is to exercise our legal right to bargain as a group.

Voting for the NTT Faculty Association-IEA/NEA is necessary 

• We've come a long way!  It took several months of hard work to contact enough people to file a petition for an election, now we need to finish the job.
   
• A union gives us strength.  We have the legal right to bargain as a group, and exercising that right gives us strength.  A union ensures that all NTTs are treated fairly and that nobody gets a raw deal.
   
• A union is the only way to guarantee improvements.  Once again, the administration is making recommendations for NTTs.  NTT needs are on the radar today, but administrators need to accommodate the tenured faculty and are legally required to negotiate with 10 other unions.  If we don't vote for a union, NTTs will remain at the bottom of the list.

The NTTFA is OUR organization. 

We as NTTs should choose who represents our interests in bargaining, we shouldn't be hand-picked by the administration.  After the election, NTTs will elect a negotiating team, and the membership will vote to approve or reject a final contract.