AFSCME, UI agree on new contract
By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu More than a year after the previous contract expired, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 698 and the UI agreed upon a new union contract. At an Oct. 25 meeting at the Urbana Civic Center, Local 698 members ratified a three-year agreement with the UI. Under the first year of the contract, most workers will receive 2.5 percent wage increases retroactive to Aug. 28, 2005, when the union’s previous contract expired. Several classifications of workers, including automotive parts managers and theatrical stitchers, will receive wage adjustments ranging from 4 – 6% to make their pay comparable to that of similar workers in the area. AFSCME members also will receive 2.5 percent increases effective Oct. 8, and 2.5 percent increases or the percentage increase given to non-union workers under the campus salary program, whichever is greater, effective Dec. 2, 2007. The new agreement expires in August 2008. “These employees work very hard for the university, and we’re grateful for their contributions,” said Robin Kaler, associate chancellor for public affairs. “Our goal was to create the best overall package possible for these employees within the resources available. We feel this agreement achieves that, and we’re glad to see that union members feel that way too.” Members of AFSCME Local 698 had been working without a contract since their previous agreement expired. The union represents about 400 workers in various job classifications and departments. “I think our members felt like they were ready to move on,” said Margaret Lewis, a senior library technical specialist and vice president of Local 698. “I think people felt like maybe it wasn’t everything we might have wanted, but it was something we could live with.” In May, the union’s bargaining agents rejected a proposal from the university that would have given workers wage increases 1.5 percent below that of the campus salary program and did not include back pay, two hot-button issues for the union’s members. Over the summer, union and university officials began working with a federal mediator to help resolve the impasse. In recent months, union members and their supporters held about a dozen informational pickets around campus, including a noontime rally on Sept. 7 outside the Illini Union during a board of trustees’ meeting to heighten awareness about their dissatisfaction with the terms of the university’s proposals. The union had perhaps its largest turnout in years when members met at the Urbana Civic Center to vote on the new contract proposal, Lewis said. “We got a lot of support from our members. They really came out for us. They came out and picketed and wrote letters and really stayed together on the issues. They did a great job,” Lewis said. Some of Local 698’s supporters, however, continue to work without a union contract and have been staging their own protests as well as picketing in solidarity with members of Local 698. The Graduate Employees Organization, IFT-AFT Local 6300, has yet to reach a new agreement with the university after the union’s initial three-year contract expired Aug. 15. The union represents about 2,700 of the more than 6,000 graduate assistants and teaching assistants on campus. The GEO and the university began negotiating in April. Key issues for GEO members are wages and the costs of student fees and health care coverage, particularly for graduate employees with families.
