Eastern’s and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale’s union negotiating teams both advanced toward tentative agreements last week.

Eastern’s chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois voted in support of a tentative agreement Thursday and will meet with members this Thursday to review contract terms, union chief negotiator Charles Delman said.

Members will cast ballots on whether to ratify the contract at a later date. Eastern’s Board of Trustees will approve the ratified contract if members vote in support.

Contract language still needs to be formatted, Delman said. Both sides have agreed to not immediately comment on specifics of the agreement.

“We’re looking at a better-written agreement. The decision … is the membership should hear it from us first,” he said.

Tentative agreements have already been reached with Eastern employees represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said Bob Wayland, director of employee and labor relations.

Overall, both sides voiced relief now negotiations have ended, Wayland said.

“That means all of our labor agreements will be settled,” he said. “We can kind of go back and restore some labor peace here on campus.”

More than the 50 percent needed of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale’s Faculty Association, 202 to 73, voted to ratify a tentative agreement Friday.

“We have gained much, such as a fixed faculty-student ratio, job security and non-contingent salary increases,” SIUCFA president Morteza Daneshdoost said in a press release last week. “We must now work to achieve workload definitions, administrative accountability and faculty involvement in programmatic changes.”

Daneshdoost affirmed the agreement’s faults in a separate press release following the contract ratification. The Faculty Association set a strike date at Feb. 3, but postponed walking to review a final proposal from Southern’s Board of Trustees. Southern would have been the first state university in Illinois to strike.

“We have avoided a strike and we have advanced the cause of higher education in southern Illinois,” Daneshdoost said. “We have grown stronger through this contract struggle and we now look to a future that is brighter and a filled with promise.”

If Southern can settle an agreement that is not ideal, Eastern’s contract negotiations can follow suit even though the union has been at the university 29 years, longer than Southern’s union, UPI president David Radavich said last week.

The UPI has identified the issues of workload, distance education and faculty and staff compensation as primary issues in negotiations.

Last week, The Daily Eastern News learned merit pay determined by administration, continuing education and study abroad courses, patent income, summer school salaries and post-tenure review were also issues for both sides.

The UPI membership meeting is open to the public at 5 p.m. Thursday in the Lumpkin Hall Auditorium.