A judge has ruled the university must repay nearly $2 million to about 1,500 current and former employees for four furlough days taken in spring 2011.

Judge Colleen Harvey, of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, found the administration at the time “lacked an open mind and a sincere desire to reach agreement,” and “did not demonstrate any interest in working with the unions.”

Marsha Griffin, council chair for the Illinois Education Association in Region 2, which covers Illinois Education Association members at the university, said the IEA filed an unfair labor practice charge for each university union impacted by the furlough days in 2011, which are the Association of Civil Service Employees, the Faculty Association and the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association.

“Right as bargaining the new contracts started, previous administration declared that all employees would have to take furloughs,” Griffin said during an IEA press conference Monday. “Despite several attempts to come to a settlement, the matter was litigated during five days of hearings [in 2014].”

An email obtained by the Daily Egyptian from Ami Ruffing, president of the Association of Civil Service Employees, which consists of about 400 workers at the university, states Harvey’s decision was “informed by minutes from internal meetings the administration’s attorney submitted as evidence in which the SIU administration team discussed strategies of ‘slam everything back at them,’ ‘need to box them in,’ ‘force the issue by pushing more paper at them.’”

During the press conference Ruffing said the former administration’s representatives shouted and swore at them while trying to bargain contracts.

“We’re the low paid, permanent employees at SIUC. Most of our union members make less than $25,000 a year, so being docked for four days’ pay was a really heavy financial burden for us,” she said.

Former President Glenn Poshard said the university was facing a severe fiscal crisis at the time, and relied on then-Chancellor Rita Cheng’s assessment of the situation.

“She felt like she had a good handle on the finances on campus there at the time and it was something we needed to do,” Poshard said. “ACsE had every right to protest that and to put their case before the court and apparently that’s what they did and they won and the university will have to pay them for that time they forfeited.”

Cheng, in her transition to the Northern Arizona University presidency, said she doesn’t know anything about the lawsuit.

Jim Wall, president of the Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association, which represents more than 600 employees at the university, said furloughing teachers hurts the university as a whole, not just employees.

“Imagine an undergraduate or graduate student going to class one day only to find our their professor has been furloughed and they have a sub for four days … it’s not just about us and our pocket books, it is also about the students,” he said.

Rachel Stocking, president of the Faculty Association, which represents the Tenure Track and Tenure faculty and consists of roughly 600 employees, said she is hopeful this ruling and the new administration of President Randy Dunn, Interim Chancellor Paul Sarvela and recently appointed Interim Provost Susan Ford will help the unions be more successful in bargaining than with the previous administration.

“As our new administrators reviews the actions of the previous four years, they can use this decision to learn from the mistakes of the past and they can join the Faculty Association in a constructive and respectable approach to collective bargaining in the future,” Stocking said at the press conference Monday.

Randall Auxier, professor of philosophy and note taker for the Faculty Association’s bargaining team, stated in an email Monday he was not surprised when the evidence showed the administration broke the law.

“But in the final analysis, it is the truth and the respect for the truth, and for law, that was on trial and that lost,” Auxier said.

The bargaining unit will meet from 11:30 to 1:30 p.m. Thursday to discuss more details about the settlement.

 Tara Kulash and Marissa Novel contributed to this story.