About 20 faculty from Sangamon State University quietly protested the Board of Regents meeting Thursday as they held picket signs in the back of the Holmes Student Center Skyroom.

Ron Ettinger, president of the Sangamon chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois, said the board did not know about the negotiation problems SSU was experiencing.

“The board needs to know that there are faculty that have interest in the university and would like to get this matter settled and behind us,” Ettinger said.

In a press release handed out during the protest, the Sangamon UPI chapter stated the Regents were “unfair to SSU faculty for not allowing a representative to speak at the meeting and for their continuing neglect of a worsening situation regarding collective bargaining at SSU.”

Regents Chancellor Roderick Groves said the Regents do not want to bargain with the SSU union members in public. He said Regents’ Chairman Carol Burns believes collective bargaining was going on in good faith, and it would not be helpful to make the negotiations public.

The Sangamon UPI has been negotiating with the SSU Regents negotiators for nine months with little progress, Ettinger said. “It is easily possible to come to a full agreement in one month if they are serious,” he said. “The president (SSU President Durward Long) has no intentions of bargaining with us,” Ettinger said.

Ettinger said the SSU Regents’ negotiation team was controlled by Long. He said Long was trying to convince faculty that it is the union’s fault the negotiations are not going smoothly. Long did not attend the Regents’ meeting and could not be reached for comment.

The Sangamon UPI protesters stood for about 15 minutes before the Regents made any reference to their presence.

Brian Hopkins, Illinois State University student regent, asked the Regents to suspend the board rules to let a UPI member speak before the board.

The Regents took a roll call vote and they voted against letting a UPI member speak. The Regents have the option to allow or deny people to address the board at meetings, Groves said.

Ettinger said the Regents’ vote made it “obvious” they did not want to acknowledge the UPI’s situation.

NIU Student Regent Nick Valadez said he voted in favor of letting the union member speak because he wanted to ease the situation. “I hoped that allowing them to speak would diffuse the matter. I hoped letting them talk to the board would make them feel less frustrated,” he said.

Valadez said he also agreed with the Regents’ position for voting against the UPI speaker. He said the Regents believe the salary negotiations at SSU should be private, not public.

Groves said the UPI has made allegations against the Regents for unfair labor negotiations for “some time now.” He said the Regents are bargaining with SSU to agree on a contract that would regulate negotiations between SSU faculty and the university management.

Two separate unfair labor negotiations charges were filed against the Regents by the Sangamon UPI chapter, the Illinois Federation of Teachers, American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO.

One charge stated the Regents’ negotiation team refused to negotiate with a certain UPI member, and the Regents refused to give the union necessary financial statements.

The other charge involved allegations that bargaining members did not receive merit increases for which they were entitled.