NIU Instructors Union calls for $3,500 raise amid stalled negotiations

By Isabella Froh, Senior News Reporter

September 22, 2025

The Holmes Student Center towers over MLK Commons. NIU’s Instructors Union bargained for higher wages on Thursday in the Lincoln Room of the Holmes Student Center. (Photo courtesy of Dinesh Medidi)

DeKALB – The NIU Instructors Union held a meeting to bargain for higher wages on Thursday in the Lincoln Room of the Holmes Student Center.

The contract between NIU’s Instructors Union and the NIU Board of Trustees expired in June, leaving members negotiating for a new contract since July 1. Since then, 11 bargaining sessions have taken place.

At the Sept. 18 meeting, Rick Surber, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 staff representative, noted NIU President Lisa Freeman was invited, but her chair remained empty.

During the meeting, union members proposed a $3,500 wage increase annually.

Surber said the $3,500 proposal was a compromise.

“We’re responding with a proposal that awards each of our members $3,500 to their base salary or wage, because some folks make $30,000 a year and some folks make $100,000 a year. A flat 3% just widens that inequality,” Surber said, referring to the previously proposed 3% annual raise for union workers.

Surber also said that the $3,500 increase was not the highest amount the union could propose, and resulted from negotiations within the union.

“We are responding to both what our members feel like is the least necessary to close some of the gaps that have grown, while also maintaining our obligation to continue to negotiate as best we can with the employer,” he said.

Currently, many union members earn $16 an hour. The union proposed raising that minimum to $18 an hour, but some say that isn’t enough.

“Even moving up to $18, even adding the 4% just for that particular line, does nothing for the rest of the members in our bargaining unit,” Surber said.

Rave Meyer, a union member and office manager for the Institute for the Study of Environment, Sustainability and Energy, shared that wages still are not enough for a living in DeKalb.

“Out of our 506 members, 165 do not make what MIT says is the minimum wage needed to live in DeKalb County,” she said.

Union representatives emphasized fairness across the union when it came to how they were being treated.

As the meeting ended, Meyer asked members to raise their hands in the room if they felt underappreciated, and many did.

“This tells everyone that NIU does not care about the employees,” Meyer said.