University departments express solidarity with SEIU workers

Giant Slayers? SEIU Takes on the University of Illinois
James Barrett

Jim Barrett is a labor historian and professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

With strikes reaching the vanishing point in the United States, a fascinating David and Goliath drama is unfolding on the University of Illinois campus, with little fanfare or media attention.

The Contenders

In the far corner, wearing the orange and blue trunks, we have the University of Illinois, a powerful bruiser, the largest employer in Champaign County, with a battery of lawyers and personnel experts, considerable political influence (though never enough, it seems, to get a decent budget from the state), its own police force, and a loyal faculty always ready to take orders from the administration. In the near corner, wearing the purple trunks with the clasped black and white fists, we have Local 73 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), representing some of the lowest paid employees on campus.

At a moment when most unions seem too petrified to call a strike, the SEIU membership, consisting of maids, janitors, and food service workers, has voted overwhelmingly (90%) to authorize a strike, if necessary, to save their union and prevent further erosion of their living standards. Some people have guts.

The fight is over wages, understaffing, and equal contracts. In the last contract cycle, service workers agreed to forego cost of living increases. This means the pay has remained stagnant, as prices have risen. The 2.5 percent increase that the university has proposed is less than inflation and will prevent workers from making up the real income lost over the past several years.

The University has also proposed different benefits for food and building service workers. This would result in greater benefit disparities between the two groups of workers. To their credit, SEIU members have refused to be divided. The better-paid workers with more benefits are supporting those with less. If the University tries to enforce such disparities, they will strike.

Possible Strike

Aware of the disruption and financial hardship it will bring its members, the union is trying desperately to avoid a strike. They have worked for almost two years without a contract and have been trying to negotiate a new one for the last fourteen months.

For a long time, the university administration seemed uninterested. After refusing to schedule another meeting with the federal mediator, the overwhelming authorization vote and the preparations for a strike seem to have encouraged them to reconsider. A meeting has been set with SEIU and the mediator on November 26, but unless the university becomes a little more motivated, the strike is still a very real possibility.

The university, of course, is banking on a state law that restricts the campus workers to a maximum of three days for the strike. There is a lot of sympathy for SEIU on campus, but the Graduate Employees Union (GEO) can’t strike to help the service workers because the GEO’s contract forbids this, as do those of many of the other campus unions.

Yet, it would be a mistake for the university to assume that other unions will not find all sort of ways to support SEIU. Most Americans still love an underdog and one can only hope that Local 73 will get a lot of help. Invisible bonds of solidarity, between unionized truck drivers, maintenance workers, teaching assistants, and even the order-loving faculty, are likely to translate into significant support.

If SEIU strikes, they hope to shut down the campus. Urbana liberals hoping to sneak into their office and classroom buildings are likely to be confronted by picketing janitors and food workers--perhaps even some of their own more unruly faculty colleagues. Walking most places on campus may entail crossing SEIU picket lines—a moral dilemma for faculty and staff who still have consciences. The fact is we would all be wise to support SEIU workers. An effective strike could settle things quickly; a weaker one is likely to simply prolong the conflict or produce more strikes later.

There will be no shortage of $200,000-a-year Finance professors (and $300,000-a-year administrators) happy to push aside a $20,000-a-year cafeteria worker who is trying to put some food on the table for her kids, but many of those hopelessly liberal humanists and social scientists (not to mention their underpaid teaching assistants) are more likely to side with the cafeteria worker. The 800 student workers who toil alongside SEIU members in residence halls and elsewhere represent something of a wild card. But many of these students likely come from blue-collar backgrounds and if the strike occurs, the administration may be surprised how many of them also sympathize with union colleagues.

Support for the Workers

One of the most remarkable things about this pending conflict is how little attention it has generated in progressive circles. The other issues crowding this one out—yet another round of black face minstrelsy, the desperate efforts to hold onto the university’s offensive mascot, and the striking threats to academic freedom inherent in the University’s new Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government – are all vital, but so is this strike.

So, if you support the legal right to strike as one cornerstone of democracy, if you still tend to root for the spunky little guy in any fight, or if you still believe that every working family deserves a decent standard of living, then you’ll want to support Local 73 in this scrap. You can do so in many ways. Write University of Illinois administrators, expressing your support for the workers and urging them to avoid the strike by compromising with the union. Write to the Daily Illini and the News-Gazette to publicize the issues in the strike and to indicate your support. You can help picket or make a donation. Discuss the pending strike with students, colleagues, and others who want to understand the issues. Above all, follow your conscience. And, if the strike occurs, don’t cross the picket line.

The “smart money” might be on the big guy in the orange and blue trunks, but I’m putting mine on the little guy in purple.

This statement has been voted on by the faculty of the Sociology department, and approved by a majority: 

In the event of a strike by the Service Employees International Union at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the faculty of the Department of Sociology hereby agrees to support it.  Faculty members are asked to honor the picket line and, if necessary, hold classes off-campus or electronically.  No action will be taken against any instructors, including teaching assistants, or staff for refusing to cross the picket line.

Here's another resolution of support, this time from Asian American Studies:

In the event of a strike by the Service Employees International Union at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the faculty of the Asian American Studies Program hereby agrees to support it. Faculty members are asked to honor the picket line and, if necessary, hold classes off-campus or electronically. No action will be taken against any instructors, including teaching assistants, or staff for refusing to cross the picket line.

The Advisory Committee Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures voted unanimously on 13 November 2007 to ask the University administration to bargain in good faith with the SEIU and reach a timely settlement.  In the event of a strike, the Department of Germanic Languages is asked to honor the picket line and, if necessary, hold classes off campus or electronically.  No action will be taken against any instructors, including teaching assistants, or staff for refusing to cross picket lines.

On Monday, November 12 the art history faculty decided on the following position regarding the potential SEIU strike.

The faculty decided to adopt a statement of support, indicating that no action would be taken against graduate teaching assistants who decide not to the cross picket line.  A formal statement is forthcoming.

Faculty resolution:

We, the faculty of Educational Policy Studies Unit of the College of Education, extend our support to the Union members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.  In so doing, we call upon the administration to bargain in good faith with members of the union, who represent some of the lowest paid workers on this campus, in an effort to arrive at an acceptable contract.  If a strike should be necessary, we will respect the right of instructors and students to honor the picket lines. In the interest of the entire university community, we strongly urge the administration to respond quickly, in the hopes of avoiding a strike that would surely negatively impact campus life.