It’s the eleventh week of the semester at Kishwaukee College in Malta. Faculty and administration have been working out contracts since last spring, but after months of negotiation, there’s still no agreement.
Tom Choice is the president of Kishwaukee College. He says a mediator has attended the last three or four meetings with faculty.
“It just got to the point where we thought we needed to meet with a mediator and so both sides requested that and then we started that...I think it was in the beginning of October.”
Choice said the objective is to have both sides reach an agreement, but--worst case scenario--both parties could reach an impasse and faculty could strike.
“As far as I know, we’ve never had a strike in our history, and we’re hoping not to get to that point again this time, and so it’s a good sign that negotiations continue.”
Choice says both sides have agreed to not publicly comment about the negotiations until a tentative contract is reached.