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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Education : Labor |
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UIUC Rep Walks Out of Negotiations with AFSCME Local 3700 After Demanding Wage Freeze/Cutbacks |
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by AFSCME Council 31
(No verified email address) |
01 Oct 2004
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Negotiations on a new contract between AFSCME Local 3700, representing support staff, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have stalled after the University's representative walks out of negotiations. |
AFSCME Council 31 Staff Representative, Jerry L. Wright announced today through a press release that the University of Illinois bargaining team, led by Kenneth (Gary) Kombrink, walked out of negotiations with the Union on Thursday. According to Wright, negotiations between the Union and the University began on May 14, 2004 and since that time the parties have met six different times and very little progress has been made.
Wright said, "The biggest problem facing us at the table is that the University is offering no across the board wage increase for three years or they want to take away the step program. Neither of these proposals are acceptable to the Union", Wright said.
Dorinda Miller, President of AFSCME Local 3700 who is a Staff Clerk at NRES said, "Three years ago we accepted a contract in which the final offer accepted was made by the University of Illinois. Now here it is three years later and they come to the table telling us they gave us too much and they want something back."
"As far as we are concerned we bargained that contract in good faith and reached a fair settlement and we have no intention of giving any part of it back." Miller concluded her comments by saying, "What the University of Illinois wants to do to the wage program will leave most of our members in a situation where they would never reach the top of their pay scale, and it takes over twenty years of service to get there now."
AFSCME Local 3700 was first organized in the early 1990's after they went several years of wage freezes. In their first contract they won set raises and a step program designed to bring them to parity with state employees in similar classifications. According to the Union, their members never have actually reached parity with state employees because the University has never fully fulfilled their obligation as defined in a resolution passed by the University Board of Trustees and the State Legislature directing the University to reach wage parity with state employees.
Wright said, "The State is still paying 4% of the employees pension contribution and the University never has agreed to do the same. Now they have walked out of negotiations and don't intend to return until October 21, that's been their strategy all along to come to the table make a low ball proposal and then not be available again for weeks, in my opinion they are not bargaining in good faith."
AFSCME Local 3700 President Miller said, "We will be having meetings with our members on October 14, 2004 to inform them of the University of Illinois proposal and show them how much the University really values all their hard work. The University of Illinois knows this University would come to a grinding halt without the nearly 2000 clerical employees in our bargaining unit making sure student and faculty needs are met on a daily basis."
Wright concluded comments by saying, "We are
ready willing and able to go back to the bargaining table and will bargain in good faith to reach a fair settlement with the University of Illinois but they have to get off the idea that we are going to go backwards!" |
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