Eastern’s first-year annually contracted faculty may soon be covered under the University Professionals of Illinois contract, depending on the outcome of Wednesday’s vote.

Voting will take place in the Effingham Room of the University Union between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. for first-year annually contracted faculty members on whether they would like to become part of UPI and be covered under the current employment contract.

Currently first-year annually contracted faculty members are not allowed to join UPI, and, therefore, are not covered under the contract until their second year of consecutive employment.

“A positive vote will help us continue to improve the professional lives of our annually contracted colleagues and enhance the university community,” Radavich said in a press release.

“We want the affected faculty to be treated the same as other faculty members, and we feel it will streamline the contract and eliminate some confusion,” David Radavich, president of Eastern’s chapter of UPI, previously said.

“We have had pretty good support from the affected faculty,” Radavich previously said.

Having the first year faculty members join the union will guarantee them health insurance coverage and allow their first year of employment to count towards seniority and retirement, which was not previously the case, Radavich previously said.

John Barron, general counsel for Eastern, previously said the first-year faculty’s salaries would not be affected because they already receive at least the minimum salary required by the UPI contract.

The election will be held by secret ballot and will be supervised by the State of Illinois Education Labor Relations Board with representatives from both UPI and Eastern’s administration present to observe, according to a press release.

Other Illinois public universities represented by UPI already include first-year, full-time adjunct faculty in their bargaining unit, according to the press release.

In early December of 2000, UPI petitioned the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board to allow first-year annually-contracted faculty members to join the Union. An agreement was reached with Eastern later that month.