The Faculty Association was the last of the four Illinois Education Association unions to ratify their contract that will end in June 2014.

The union membership approved the contract Wednesday after the Departmental Representatives Council unanimously approved it Nov. 17.

“While we are disappointed that it took 16 months of negotiations and a strike to reach this agreement, the agreement will help us defend academic freedom, shared governance and academic priorities on this campus,”  said Dave Johnson, FA spokesman. “We are proud of the hard work, resilience and dedication by our members that has made this progress possible.”

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The union and administration’s bargaining teams had been negotiating contract terms since June 2010 when the previous one ended.

The approval comes after the union was on strike for a week during negotiations and a tentative agreement was reached Nov. 9.

Early Nov. 3, the day the strike began, the FA’s three sister unions approved tentative agreements that also had to be ratified by the membership.

The Non-Tenure Track Faculty Association also approved their contract Wednesday with 94 percent of voters in approval. Graduate Assistants United approved their contract Nov. 21 with 91 percent of voters in approval, and members of the Association of Civil Service Employees unanimously approved their contract Nov. 16.

All four contracts still have to be ratified by the SIU Board of Trustees. The next Board meeting is Friday.