Professors at Southern Illinois U. at Carbondale Authorize Strike

September 29, 2011, 11:57 am

Tenured and tenure-track faculty members at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale have overwhelmingly voted to authorize the union that represents them, the SIUC Faculty Association, to call a strike if deemed necessary. Of the 88 percent of eligible voters who took part in the election, 92 percent approved strike authorization, the union, which is affiliated with the National Education Association, announced Wednesday. Members of the union that represents the university’s civil-service employees have also voted to authorize their leaders to call a strike, while the unions representing graduate assistants and non-tenure-track faculty will hold strike-authorization votes in the coming days. Contract negotiations there have been turbulent, and all four of the unions have filed complaints accusing the university of unfair labor practices.

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cordelia

That’s pretty gutsy. Our expired contract is being renegotiated, and I can’t imagine our faculty voting to strike, regardless of what they throw at us or what they take away, considering the current economy and the spreading the anti-intellectualism. The sad thing is that management knows this. I wish the SIU faculty well.
jffoster

Cordelia,
I think you’ll find that voting to AUTHORIZE a strike is a pretty routine bargaining tactic and does not at all mean that a strike is in the offing, let alone looming.
http://www.facebook.com/george.boulukos George Boulukos

The situation is very serious here. We’ve been 450+ days without a contract. We are working under imposed terms that eviscerate tenure (30 Day layoffs at discretion of BOT for TT employees), allow furloughs at will, and even give us no right to refuse the assignment of specific distance learning learning course by the administration, with no language accounting for impact on our teaching loads.
observer001

SIU’s administration is at a crossroads: will they at least preserve what is left of the university through the downturn- meaning preserve a tenure system capable of attracting and keeping the best faculty- or are they predatory frauds intent on turning SIU into a diploma mill or killing it entirely.
millerfour4

I think these days these teachers should be glad they have a job that pays a decent living. They need to be in the real world and get a factory job or wait tables. Then they would see they have it made. Sorry but most dont ever teach their class the TA does and they get paid. Sorry but this is a joke. Also the pension and retiree coverages are not what the people in the private sector get. They should be required to contrbute 100% of their pension through payroll deductions like the rest of the non-public sectors do. Get a life get back to work and be thankful someone wants you and teach those kids to make us proud. This institution is a mill the teachers never come to class sorry to say. If the fees or tuition go up any further they might as well close the institution as it won’t be able to sustain exsistence. Grow up folks and look at the real world please.