Daily Egyptian Managing Editor

The SIUC faculty union and administration’s quest to hammer out a faculty contract hit another stumbling block Thursday as the faculty union announced it will file an unfair labor practice because the administration is bargaining in bad faith.

The legal counsel to the University responds that the University is negotiating in good faith and that the charge represents a challenge of the University’s authority to hire faculty.

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A press release from the SIUC faculty association states that an unfair labor practice charge will be filed because of the cancellation of numerous searches.

The College of Liberal Arts dean announced earlier this month that about eight faculty position searches would have to be canceled to prepare for eventual faculty salary increases.

Campus administrators said the searches were being canceled to generate funds for faculty and staff salary increases, the press release states. Salaries are mandatory subjects of bargaining under the Illinois Educational Labor law.

Margaret Winters, associate vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and spokeswoman for the administration, would not comment on the charge.

She said, however, the University is planning and developing a budget for fiscal year 1999 faculty salary increases, but that salaries have not been bargained off the table.

No salaries have been bargained, Winters said. They will be bargained at the table by the bargaining team.

The unfair labor practice charge comes on the heels of College of Liberal Arts Dean Robert Jensen’s announcement Feb. 9 that about eight of the 37 pending faculty searches in the college must be canceled. The memo states the cancellation of the searches is necessary to prepare for a faculty salary increase that could result from contract negotiations.

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The memo further states Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost John Jackson instructed the college to set aside slightly over $300,000 for this purpose.

SIUC Chancellor Donald Beggs responded to the memo Feb. 24 in a clarification sent to all COLA full-time faculty. The memo states salary increases will be determined at the bargaining table and that no decision has been made with respect to the amount of any salary or fringe benefit adjustments for or beginning July 1, 1998, inasmuch as that will be determined in collective bargaining negotiations.

It also states to the extent the acting dean of the College of Liberal Arts may have suggested anything different he was in error.

Jim Sullivan, faculty association president, would not comment on the unfair labor practice charge until it is filed. He did, however explain the reason for the charge.

We felt that to renege on approved searches in the midst of bargaining represented the worst form of cannibalism, Sullivan said. The association views the process as outrageous and the outcome as totally demoralizing.

This unfair labor practice will be the second such charge filed by the association. Last October, the association accused SIU President Ted Sanders of excluding faculty union representation from the Chancellor Search Committee. The charge was settled after administrators agreed to give the association a role in the chancellor- selection process.

When filed, the charge will go to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. The board can schedule a hearing, deny a hearing or grant the union injunctive relief.

Peter Ruger, University legal counsel, said the charge could take two or three years to settle if it goes before the IELRB.

Ruger said it is difficult to comment on the charge because it has not been filed yet. He said, however, that it is a mischaracterization to suggest the University is not bargaining in good faith.

It sounds like there’s a technical legal issue here of whether or not the filling of positions is a subject of mandatory bargaining, he said.

We have been bargaining in good faith since day one, but the University not the union has legal authority in the filling of positions. So what seems to be the issue here is whether the University’s decision (to suspend faculty searches) is a subject of mandatory bargaining.

Winters said the faculty union’s unfair labor practice charges are in the hands of lawyers now.

Both teams’ lawyers are talking, she said. So the accusations are being discussed and the associations allegations are being considered.