Members of the negotiation teams looked at each other across the table with weary eyes four years ago. They had been at it for hours, going back and forth in a room tucked away in Lumpkin Hall. Bargaining had been strained with concerns over award compensation and salary. However, when members of the negotiation team exited the building as the sun was coming up, they were able to look at the situation with a whole new sense of clarity.

They had come to a contract agreement.

Although this year’s negotiations between Eastern’s chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois and the administration has been a long and often confusing process for members, this process has been an increasingly involved situation over the past ten years.

For the 2006-2010 contract, several members of the UPI/EIU’s negotiation team reflect on the all-night negotiation session that had them bargaining until dawn.

Unit B faculty member Carol Jean Dudley has been on the UPI/EIU negotiation team since 1999 and recalls the relief that came from finally coming to a resolution for the 2006-2010 negotiations.

“It was one session when everyone was tired and all of a sudden everything was involved and we were able to resolve things,” she said. “You never know how things will turn out.”

Grant Sterling, a philosophy professor agreed.

“This was a session where there were a lot of issues on the table,” he said. “We met in the late afternoon and right off the bat, the administration said ‘maybe we could do this.’ By the next morning, we had a good contract and we were thrilled.”

Under President Lou Hencken, negotiations began in May of 2006 and concluded in late October, which was the shortest negotiation period in recent history.

Mathematics professor Charles Delman, a longtime UPI/EIU member and the chapter president during the 2006-2010 negotiations, said that a concern on these rounds of negotiations were to ensure across-the-board equity based adjustments for faculty and staff salaries.

“Salaries, benefits and working conditions aren’t just about money. They really have a lot to do with the quality of the university,” Delman said. “I think most student’s recognize that going to a university is not just about getting a paper to get a job, it’s about getting a good education.”

Lora Green, an academic adviser who was head of the contract campaign committee during the 2006-2010 negotiations, said the UPI/EIU members wore ‘One Bite of the Apple’ buttons.

This referred to the UPI/EIU believing that the administration was only limiting them to only one type of grievance hearing.

“The administration was insisting on ‘one bite of the apple’ language, and (the UPI/EIU members) thought this was interesting,” said English professor John Allison, the current UPI/EIU chapter president.

Allison was the UPI/EIU chief negotiator for that round of negotiations. He said that in order to show solidarity during this bargaining process, members of the union posted ‘Contract Now’ signs throughout the university.

“The idea was that we were determined,” Allison said.

Dudley believes that as the negotiation process has evolved at the university, so has the UPI/EIU’s contract campaign committee.

“It’s become more organized. We have tried to build in involving as many people as possible,” she said. “The union isn’t something that is out there that is going to rescue us. We are the union, if we don’t get people involved, we won’t be able to come to a contract agreement.”

From the 2006-2010 negotiations, grievance rights were preserved. Additionally, substantial increases in salary were preserved, Sterling said.

However, not all negotiations have been as smooth. Similar to this year’s round of bargaining, extensive negotiation periods span back all the way to the 1999-2002 contract negotiations. Although the negotiations began in Spring of 1998, a contract was not settled upon until the spring of the next year.

For Sterling and Dudley, this was the first time they had been members of the negotiation team and considered this as a confusing time for contract discussions.

“We really didn’t anticipate the struggle that we faced and didn’t anticipate how long a contract agreement would ultimately take,” Dudley said. “We did a lot of learning, asked a lot of questions, and sometimes the questions I asked were more helpful than I thought.”

Concern from the UPI/EIU members heightened when then President Carol Surles installed a panic button in her office due to safety concerns that cost the university approximately $10,000 to $12,000, Allison said.

“The administration aren’t the only people who have security concerns,” Allison said. “It was an opportunity for language on a button that would show that we were determined.”

For that round of negotiations, Allison said that the UPI/EIU members did informational picketing in front of Old Main walking on Lincoln Avenue right in front of the president’s office. Allison felt that this was an effective measure for members to participate in.

“Even though it was cold, we got a lot of support,” he said.

The 1999-2002 contract was signed in February of 2000 and covered the years until 2002 when a salary re-opener would be introduced.

In order to accommodate salary increase proposals, Delman said the UPI/EIU allowed the administration to handle the situation in a delayed manner. This was done in order for the administration to reassess its budget in order to determine if the proposal was plausible.

“(Negotiations are) always a civil process, but never an uncontentious process,” Delman said. “The money has always been there if we made them find it.”

For every negotiation, the UPI/EIU members stated a concern for the administration to hold on to its managerial rights.

Robert Wayland has been chief negotiator for the administration since the 1999 negotiations and believes that these rights are ones that the administration should hold on to.

“If members of (the) UPI/EIU were asked to give up some of their rights at the bargaining table, they would also want to protect those rights,” he said.

The one aspect that has been consistent for the negotiations from 1999 on is the need to bring in a federal mediator.

Wayland said that in his experience as chief negotiator for the administration, the role of the federal mediator has been customary. Additionally, he believes that despite the sometimes-extensive periods of bargaining, “it is always a very civil process.”

On Nov. 4, members of the UPI/EIU stood in the 36-degree weather with picket signs in tow to welcome the federal mediator in their own way.

With megaphone in hand, Allison told the crowd, “We’re a university, not a corporation.”

Although the UPI/EIU and the administration have met with the federal mediator since this rally, there has been only marginal progress in the bargaining process. The concern from the UPI/EIU and the administration is if history of the grueling negotiation process of 10 year past will repeat itself.

Shelley Holmgren can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].