As faculty contract negotiations plod on, the possibility of a strike has been discussed.

The University Professionals of Illinois, Eastern’s faculty union and the administration continue to negotiate a new three-year contract and met with a federal mediator before Thanksgiving break.

The mediator will resume aiding negotiations Wednesday, and UPI President David Radavich said the UPI remains “guardedly hopeful” that an equitable settlement can be reached that satisfies most people.

If a settlement cannot be reached, the strike process could begin. Radavich said the UPI views a faculty strike as a last resort.

“The best way to avoid a strike is to demonstrate a strong resolve to strike if necessary,” Eastern’s UPI Web site states.

Eastern is not the only university to struggle with negotiations and consider a strike.

A similar situation is brewing at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

The faculty union and administrators at SIUC have made no negotiation gains since last February, and the Faculty Association voted Nov. 20 in support of a strike authorization.

If negotiations continue to be unsuccessful at SIUC, and the administration continues to ignore faculty requests, the Faculty Association said they will call a strike on or before Feb. 3.

Faculty Association President Morteza Daneshdoost previously said a strike would be tragic for students, the university and the state.

Eastern’s faculty union has never gone on strike, although negotiations have gone to the brink a couple of times, Radavich said.

“I don’t expect a strike to happen, and if it did, it would be short,” he said. “(A strike would be) balancing short-term pain with long-term gain.”

In the rare events in the past in which other university’s faculty have refused to work, Radavich said the strikes typically have not lasted long.

Harper College in Palatine, a community college, went on strike in October for 12 days after the faculty could not reach a contract agreement.

Phil Burdick, director of communications at Harper, said the biggest issues leading up to the strike were a dissatisfaction with faculty salaries and health care insurance costs.

“The strike affected 14,500 credit students,” Burdick said. “Students missed a total of eight days of classes, but made up most of the classes during exams week – nothing good comes out of a strike.”

A faculty strike of even larger proportions occurred in Hawaii last year. Ten colleges in the state went on strike for eight school days, in what John Radcliffe, associate executive director of the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, called the first state-wide higher education strike in American history.

Over 3,000 faculty across the state stopped working, shutting down all the campuses, Radcliffe said.

All classes stopped and no one crossed the picket line, he said.

Radcliffe also said the faculty worked with students to make it clear they would not be hurt by the strike, and arranged weekend make-up dates for missed classes.

“The students were negatively affected by their studies being interrupted – those youngsters were very anxious,” Radcliffe said. “The faculty needs to make students understand what side to be on, and naturally, students want to be on their own side. Let the students know the faculty is doing it , in essence, for them.”

Although the Hawaiian strike upset students, Radcliffe said the faculty felt successful and there was a big difference in morale.

“There’s not a faculty in the world that would go on strike if there was another choice,” he said. “They have to feel things are pretty damn desperate.”