SIU faculty union leaders decide to poll members about offer

CARBONDALE, Ill. --Leaders of Southern Illinois University's faculty union opted Sunday to poll members about the school's latest contract offer before deciding whether to call a strike.

The union's 45-member policy-making board wants to hear more from the Carbondale faculty before deciding whether to make good on a threat to strike after a yearlong dispute over salary and working conditions on the 22,000-student campus.

Following the union's announcement Sunday night, SIUC chancellor Walter Wendler repeated his contention that the university's offer was the "best proposal by any university in the state of Illinois.

"If faculty members review this and call their counterparts at other universities," they will find out as much, Wendler said.

Union members will be polled today and Tuesday about the contract, union president Morteza Daneshdoost said.

'Democracy takes time'

"I know a lot of people are waiting for a final decision but democracy takes time," he said after the panel met for five hours Sunday.

The 400-member union represents 688 tenured and tenure-track faculty on the university's Carbondale campus. Their previous contract expired June 30, 2002.

Faculty at SIU's Edwardsville campus and its law and medical schools are not represented by the union and would be unaffected by any possible strike.

After the union poll, the governing board will decide whether to reject the school's offer outright and call a strike, or send it back to union members for a strike vote, Daneshdoost said.

The union had threatened to walk out as early as today.

Daneshdoost said union members will be at their jobs while the poll is conducted, but they could vote for a strike anytime after that.

The union has demanded a 10.5 percent raise in salary and benefits over two years. It also wants a bigger role in academic hiring decisions and granting tenure to faculty.

School administrators have said the union is asking for too much at a time of budget cuts and state deficits.

Wendler said he won't give professors any more say in hiring and tenure decisions.

"The hiring process on this campus follows the guidelines of the American Association of University Professors," he said.

Wendler said people making the hiring decisions must have the entire university in mind and not just one department.

The proposal administrators made on Friday -- what they called their "last and best offer" -- included a 7.5 percent raise over the final three years of a four-year contract, but it did not address most of the professors' noneconomic demands, such as more say in the hiring and tenure decisions.

The SIUC professors average $60,200 a year. Public university professors in Illinois average about $66,000 per year.

Professors at Eastern Illinois University also are locked in difficult negotiations.

The faculty union at the Charleston school last week voted to give their leaders permission to call a strike in the months ahead if their demands for better pay and benefits aren't met.