SIU faculty union pushes for arbitration to avert strike

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Southern Illinois University officials gave the campus' faculty union what they called their final contract offer Thursday in an attempt to avert a threatened strike Monday.

A spokesman for the 400-member union said late Thursday that the group had not yet made a decision on the university's proposal and declined to comment on it.

The four-year offer includes no raise the first year, then a minimum 7.5 percent raise over the following three years, among other things, said chancellor Walter Wendler.

"I will assure you that this is the best offer that faculty at any public university in the state of Illinois are receiving at this time," he told reporters.

Both sides have been bargaining over a new contract since February 2002, with professors demanding more pay than university administrators say they can afford at a time of state budget cuts.

The group represents 688 tenured and tenure-track faculty on the 22,000-student Carbondale campus.

The union is demanding a 10.5 percent raise in salary and benefits over two years, said professor James Kelly, the group's spokesman.

Thursday's offer includes assurances the administration will hire more tenured and tenure-track faculty to fill most open positions and make more hires as enrollment grows, Wendler said.

But university officials rejected a request by the union to submit to binding arbitration.

Allowing a person outside the university to decide the provisions of a contract would not be in the school's best interest, Wendler said.

Before the latest offer, union leaders had said binding arbitration was the only way to avoid a strike on Monday, in which leaders have vowed to "shut down the university."

As administrators try to solve the impasse, they are making plans in case those who teach the campus' 1,200 classes scheduled for Monday fail to show up for work.

The university ordered an advertisement for the Southern Illinoisan newspaper Sunday directing those interested in replacing striking instructors to send their resumes to a campus address, spokesman Susan Davis said.