The state of Illinois is currently ground zero in the wave of university strikes as, starting today, three universities associated with University Professionals of Illinois Local 4100 will see their faculty on strike until further notice.
The chain of strikes began last Monday (April 3), when Chicago State University's 160 faculty began a strike. Faculty there walked out over low salaries and heavy teacher workload, following 10 months of unsuccessful negotiation between them and the university. Union members at CSU have been hesitant to publicly talk about specific points of disagreement–with UPI at CSU president John Miller being quoted as saying “We don’t bargain in public,”–but it is known that that what the union is asking for would cost around $300,000 more per year. CSU has argued that the union's goals "far exceed [the university's] current economic position." It may be of interest here that, according to Chicago NPR affiliate WBEZ, CSU employees have some of the lowest pay of all faculty in Illinois while CSU president Zaldwaynaka Scott is one of the state's highest paid university employees and made $395,000 in 2021.
On Thursday, April 6, the second domino in this affair fell: approximately 300 Eastern Illinois University faculty also began a strike. EIU faculty had likewise been negotiating with the university for over a year prior to their decision to take strike action. Their contract expired in August, and the two parties have likewise yet to come to an agreement on salary and workload proposals according to the union.
A piece by Belt Magazine gives specific context to the dedication of EIU's employees, and what motivated their decision to strike. During Illinois's Republican-created budget crisis from 2015 to 2017, EIU saw a $30 million budget cut and was forced to lay off over 400 employees. Faculty at EIU saved 29 jobs, but did so at the cost of a pay freeze; at the same time, the layoffs forced remaining faculty to take on much greater workloads than had previously been needed. In the five years since, a combination of still-insufficient state funding and COVID-19 has kept this status quo in effect–and particularly with inflation, the situation has become completely unworkable. In other reporting by NPR Illinois, the union has actually alleged that "university administration is proposing a pay cut for faculty and staff".
The next series of negotiations is due today for EIU–however, negotiations have made little progress since the strike was declared, and it is likely the strike will be extended.
That set of negotiations also coincides with the third strike that was declared today, April 11: faculty at Governors State University walked out following ten months of negotiations which have seen no resolution and little overall progress. Pay at Governors State, as with Chicago State, is some of the lowest in Illinois for faculty, and the situation at Governors State is particularly acute for student advisors according to reporting–some advisors are stated as having over 500 students to manage.
A commonality between all three universities, notes WBEZ, is that they are "regional institutions that serve significant numbers of students of color or students from low-income communities, and all three have had to do more with less as public funding has dropped over the years." The average student at all three universities requires a Pell Grant;1 and even at EIU, which is in downstate Illinois, a full 30% of students are minorities. Universities like these three–which do not generate much tuition revenue–are ones that have been hit disproportionately hard by the defunding of Illinois education, which has only recently begun to reverse itself under the governorship of J.B. Pritzker (Democrat).2 At Chicago State and Eastern Illinois, declining student enrollment has only furthered the crisis brought on by a lack of state-level support. In the long-term, this remains perhaps the issue driving Illinois universities to act in the way they do.
In the short-term, however, this situation is entirely the fault of universities for failing to adequately support their faculty. Despite proposed increases in public education funding in this year's state budget, all three of CSU, EIU, and GSU are citing budgetary considerations as a reason they cannot pay their faculty better. This is obviously farcical, particularly given what the unions are asking for, how much it costs (not much!), and what those faculty members have already sacrificed through the budget crisis of 2015-2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In any case, it seems likely at least one union will eventually win their dispute, and possibly all three given the significance of striking at the same time. Already this year another Illinois university, University of Illinois-Chicago, saw its faculty successfully win a 5% raise by going on a five-day strike. The strike at Chicago State University has also been supported by mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, which can only bode well.
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In short, for non-Americans: A Pell Grant is a (somewhat bureaucratic) subsidy for education. If you're low-income enough and haven't earned a bachelor's yet, you are eligible for a Grant of up to $6,845 (as of 2022-23) from the federal government to be put toward your tuition. You do not have to repay this.
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Even so, current state funding for universities is far from what it was even 20 years ago: only 35% of public university revenue in Illinois is currently state funding, down from over 70% in 2003. Factoring in inflation, overall funding has also dropped by the equivalent of approximately $1 billion since then.