As the faculty unions at Eastern and Southern Illinois universities threaten to strike, NIU administrators are breathing easy.

A strike at NIU would not be possible until 2006 – when the current contract expires and most of the current student body will have graduated.

However, both unions threatening a strike at EIU and SIU involve tenured and tenure-track employees. At NIU, only non-tenured and non-tenure-track instructors have outside representation.

“NIU tenure-track faculty is not unionized,” said Steve Cunningham, NIU’s associate vice president of administration and human resources. “They operate under the shared-governance system … [where] the employees have their own independent systems of relationships with the employer.”

NIU’s employees may vote about whether to have third-party representation. While the tenured and tenure-track faculty here have decided to remain independent, those at EIU and SIU are represented by bargaining agents or associations, such as the University Professionals of Illinois.

At EIU, the faculty and staff recently voted 212-40 in support of a strike.

“I hope we do not have to strike,” said David Radavich, president of EIU’s UPI chapter. “But the membership has given a clear mandate that the administration’s offers are just unacceptable.”

The main elements of disagreement there include salary, workload and online instruction.

At SIU, faculty members were scheduled to finish voting Tuesday in a poll about the school’s latest contract offer before deciding about a strike. Their main issues are salary and working conditions.

“Salary has been, over time, a significant issue for instructors and for instructors elsewhere around the country,” Cunningham said. “A strike is not something that’s favorable to any of the parties involved. It’s a classic lose-lose situation, I think.”

At NIU, all titled instructors who have been here for at least one semester are in the union. NIU first became a UPI chapter in October 1992. Since then, there have been four collective bargaining agreements, Cunningham, who is responsible for NIU’s negotiations, said.

There has not been a strike or work stoppage at NIU for at least 30 years, said Jodi Tyrrell, NIU’s manager of operating staff services. She began working at NIU in 1977, and the only stoppage she knew of was a janitors’ strike in the 1960s.

Sandy Flood is the president of NIU’s UPI chapter. She’s also an instructor in kinesiology and physical education who teaches methods classes for future teachers in public schools.

“We have had contracts for 10 years and we have made great gains,” she said. “We’re still working on the misconception that we are not good teachers. Many people think we’re hired at the last minute with no thought. They choose the best instructors available and we have very excellent evaluations from students.”

Flood said the current agreement expires June 30, 2006, and its biggest benefit was an increased minimum wage for instructors. The agreement was signed on Sept. 13, 2001.

Because staffers are in the midst of the long-term agreement, the labor relationship between NIU and its employees is calm – for now.

“We feel really good about the current agreement,” said Karen Baker, NIU’s director of compliance and labor relations. “We work together, we don’t have any deep-rooted problems at this time that I’m aware of. We work through whatever we need to work through. I think we’ve always maintained that relationship before.”

Before the instructors unionized in ‘92, the situation was very frustrating, Flood said.

“They were given very little money, very little recognition, no respect, and yet they were teaching students at NIU and putting in a great deal of work and effort,” she said.

Flood said the current contract is one of the best for non-tenure-track faculty nationwide, with a strong grievance procedure and fair reconsideration/evaluation process. Negotiations for the next contract likely will begin in June of 2006.

As for the future, Baker said if she’s still in her current position that she will be a negotiator.

“I think both teams have negotiated in good faith and they will do so again,” Baker said. “In my opinion, it’s imperative, crucial and great to be working at a university where there are such good relationships with unions or employees who are working things out in an amicable way. It just betters our environment as a whole.”

But could there be a strike in three years?

“If we ever find that NIU is not bargaining in good faith,” Flood said, “and we cannot cooperate on any issues, then we would consider a strike. But certainly striking is not a good choice if you can figure out the problems at the table.”