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As Triton faculty contract nears expiration, union raising awareness of negotiations, but ‘no one is talking strike yet’

Triton faculty gathered June 19 outside the school’s Learning Resource Center, wearing matching red T-shirts and holding signs to raise awareness of ongoing contract negotiations before the evening’s board meeting.

The instructors made their presence known during the standing-room-only meeting as well, with at least 10 people speaking about the contract talks, which have been ongoing for about three months.

“These people will come back in July and August and so on if they have to,” said Joe Dusek, the Triton College Faculty Association president and a math professor at the school.

Faculty also packed the board’s meeting room in May to address negotiations. This month, they waited nearly 45 minutes past the meeting’s 7:30 p.m. start time, as the board arrived late from a dinner honoring Triton’s national championship-winning basketball team.

The full-time faculty union’s current contract will expire June 30. The union initially proposed a 4 percent annual raise for three years, plus added assessment responsibilities for faculty. They are now hoping for 3 percent annually over three years, Dusek said. However, the administration has pushed for added duties the union finds strange or inappropriate, he said, such as a suggestion that faculty make cold calls to local high school students.

English Department Chairman Michael Flaherty mentioned the cold call proposal when he addressed the board, suggesting that the administration equate giving a raise with expecting more work from the employees whose salaries increase.

“I’m not a volunteer, even though I sometimes work beyond what I’m required to do. I’m a professional,” Flaherty said.

Triton Chairman Mark Stephens weighed in on the matter after hearing from faculty.

“Sometimes the characterization is different, depending on who’s discussing it,” he said, citing an item in the state budget signed in early June dictating that school districts must pay resulting pension costs on end-of-career raises above 3 percent. “… You might want to go down and talk to some folks in Springfield.”

Triton public relations coordinator Stephen Butera stated in an email that the college couldn’t comment further on ongoing negotiations.

If a contract agreement isn’t reached by the end of June, union members will likely continue to work on the conditions of the previous contract, Dusek said, as was the case three years ago.

“No one is talking strike yet,” he said.

Triton’s median salary for full-time faculty is $64,226 and its average salary for full-time faculty is $70,747, according to a 2017 salary report from the Illinois Community College Board.

Also June 19, Triton’s board unanimously approved the school’s 2019 tentative budget as part of its action exhibits vote. The operating budget includes a roughly $7.5 million deficit, with the college taking in about $56.2 million and spending about $63.7 million, according to board documents.

However, Butera stated in an email that Triton anticipates 2019’s actual expenditures will be much lower than the budgeted amount, “due to varying enrollment and un-filled positions.”

“The key way we can raise revenues is through driving enrollment,” Stephens said during the meeting

The 2018 budget had a projected deficit of $7.9 million, Butera stated.

Additionally on June 19, the board unanimously voted in favor of contract increases for 29 administrators, including President Mary-Rita Moore, as part of its human resources report approval, Butera confirmed in an email.

Moore will receive a salary of $239,850 in the coming fiscal year, according to board documents. Her contract also states she is entitled to a tax-sheltered annuity of $15,000, the cost of an annual medical exam not exceeding $300, a car no more than three years old to be maintained by the board and a cellphone, among other benefits.

With the exception of Moore, the contracts that were granted increases had previously been renewed at the board’s March 27 meeting. Among those contracts were agreements for Triton’s two vice presidents, Debra Baker and Sean Sullivan.