The chief negotiator for Northern Illinois University says the union representing more than 600 NIU employees turned down the campus-wide three-percent wage approved by the NIU Board of Trustees in October and scheduled to take effect this month.
The chief negotiator for AFSCME Local 1890 says that’s not the whole story.
NIU has been negotiating an initial contract between and a new unit of the largest union representing clerical, paraprofessional and administrative employees at NIU for nearly two years.
The wage increase proposed by Acting NIU President Lisa Freeman initially did not include employees who were negotiating a new contract, but the trustees agreed that they could be eligible for the pay hike, subject to agreement by the bargaining teams.
In a memo updating the status of negotiations, NIU chief negotiator Jesse Perez said the NIU Faculty union had agreed to accept the three-percent increase in lieu of any other wage increases for prior fiscal years. He also said negotiators for Local 1890 requested that same agreement on Nov. 1.
According to Perez, NIU presented that proposal on Nov. 10, but the union rejected it that same day. “In short,” he wrote, “they want more than 3% and more than what the Faculty are receiving. Specifically, they want a 10-21% increase retroactively effective to January 2016.”
Union officials say Perez’s description of the proposals is inaccurate.
“I think that his misinterpretation and confusion regarding our proposals has been part of the problem all along,” said Sara Dorner, the chief AFSCME negotiator.
She said the union never asked for the same wage increase agreement as NIU faculty. Instead, the AFSCME unit merely used the faculty agreement as an example of how NIU could apply the wage increase to open union contracts.
“It’s just another example of Jesse Perez, director of employee and labor relations, not listening and rather telling us – mansplaining to our unit -- what we’re wanting and what we’re saying,” Dorner said.
Perez noted that NIU hoped to apply the campus-wide pay increases to members of Local 1890 before the holidays.
“The proposal to AFSCME for the campus-wide increase is still available to bargaining unit members upon agreement by their elected bargaining team,” he wrote. “At this time, it is entirely up to AFSCME as to when their members will receive the increment.”
The Perez memo said that, over the past 18 months, the two sides “have been successful in focusing our attention on areas of agreement” for the unit’s first contract with NIU. “We are now entering discussions in which the employer and union do not agree.”
Perez provided the following list of what he called “the most pressing proposals from AFSCME that are creating challenges in settling the initial contract:”
Wages
- 21% increase for employees earning under $11.88 per hour retroactively applied to 1/01/2016
- 10% for all other members retroactively applied to 1/01/2016
- 5% across-the-board increase in 2017
- 5% across-the-board increase in 2018
- 5% across-the-board increase in 2019
Health benefits
Employer pays all costs of any changes to state health coverage in order for members to maintain current cost and coverage.
Professional development
Employer automatically approves any training requests from membership and pays for all expenses.
Parking
Members only pay 0.20% of annual pay as parking rate.
Layoffs
Guarantee no layoffs
Outsourcing
Guarantee no outsourcing
Perez also said that the union proposed to include 14 sections of the BOT Board Regulations, in its entirety, as part of the collective bargaining agreement. “The challenge with this request is,” he said, “if there are changes to the Board Regs, it would not be applied to AFSCME members until a new agreement is settled.”
AFSCME negotiator Sara Dorner told WNIJ that Perez’s presentation of the union proposals is inaccurate.
The union has scheduled a rally from noon to 1 p.m. Monday in front of Altgeld Hall on the NIU campus.
- WNIJ Reporter Katie Finlon contributed to this story.