Holiday cheer apparently is not in the Board of Regents’ vocabulary.

The Board of Regents and Local 3389 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—AFSCME—have met in negotiations regarding catch-up increment raises for union members. In these negotiations, that have broken down twice, the Board has refused to consider the raises for union employees. About 80 NIU paraprofessionals are affected in the talks, while they are in the last year of their three-year contract, scheduled to expire in June 30, 1990.

The union, although it received an 8.7 percent pay raise in 1989, wants its share of the pie and is requesting pay equity with statewide averages.

The union members, who maintain most non-organized NIU employees have received the catch-up raises, deserve to be paid an honest dollar for an honest day’s work. At stake is some kind of financial security in these ever increasingly unstable financial times.

Unfortunately, the Board refers to statistics not available to the union, and has indicated it will not hear the union at this week’s board meeting in Springfield because of negotiations.

It is unfortunate that the Board is taking this attitude when it comes to its employees, yet it is not surprising since the attitude has been prevalent toward students for a number of years.