NEIUPI

Grace Dawson, NEIU Trustee, has sent a response via mail to faculty and staff that have contacted her by mail. Her response appears below. She also encourages us to attend the BOT meeting on June 10.

Dear xxxx,

I am in receipt of your letter and several others and am glad that you informed the trustees of your concerns about the status of the union negotiations at NEIU. I will give this matter my utmost attention.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

I recommend that you come to the public portion of the next Board Meeting on June 10, 2010. You should have a representative to speak before the members of the Board of Trustees. You must notify the Board that your representative wants to speak. Contact Mildred Crespo the Board Secretary. At that time you or your representative(s) can reiterate your concerns about the negotiation process.

Thanks again for the information concerning negotiations.

Here is the email response from Jose Fulgencio, the student trustee member of the NEIU BOT. Similar to the previous correspondence received from the members of the NEIU BOT, he extends an invitation to attend the June 10 meeting held on campus at 2 pm.

Greetings:

I want to first thank you all for the hard work and dedication you give to NEIU. As a recent graduate of NEIU and as the Student Trustee I am alarmed by how much time and money is being spent on the negotiations. I will keep your email/letter in mind when the Board of Trustees meets June 10th, which all of you are invited to attend.

Thank you

Today I received a call from Carlos Azcoitia, a member of the NEIU Board of Trustees, in response to the letters he has been receiving from faculty and staff about the status of negotiations. Mr. Azcoitia expressed his concern about the prolonged negotiations and is interested in having this manner resolved as soon as possible. He assured me that negotiations would be discussed at the next Board of Trustees meeting on June 10. Mr. Azcoitia asked me to let bargaining unit members of his concern and interest in having negotiations reach a successful conclusion.

He suggested as did his colleague, Marvin Garcia, that faculty and staff representatives attend the meeting on June 10 at 2 pm.

Negotiations are scheduled for tomorrow and I will email a progress report at the end of the day. The UPI negotiating has passed many proposals since January and we hope our third summer of negotiations is more productive than the last two summers. Tomorrow can bring hope.

Over the Memorial Day weekend several faculty and staff received an email from a member of the NEIU Board of Trustees, Marvin Garcia. It was in response to letters sent by bargaining unit members to the trustees. Please find his email below:

Dear faculty and staff of Northeastern Illinois University,

Thank you for raising your concerns about the current contract negotiations. I have received many letters that have stated that the long and protracted process has eroded faculty morale and is incompatible with two of NEIU’s core values: Integrity and Community.

As a NEIU Board of Trustee member and a concerned educator, I am deeply troubled by 1) the long two-year negotiating process that has led to concerns across the NEIU community, 2) the revelation of administrative expenditures for the management negotiating team during a period of financial crisis and continued budget cuts and 3) the potential impact on student learning when both parties are not totally focused on instruction and the directing of resources to this endeavor.

No doubt this current situation has called upon us all to push towards a contract resolution and an examination of the process that has enabled the current situation. I too, will work with fellow board members to encourage both parties to expedite the process, complete a contract agreement and push for a better negotiating process in the future.

I trust that many faculty and staff will be present at the next board meeting to express concerns and suggest solutions that will help ameliorate this situation.

I am proud to serve the NEIU community and all the exemplary and dedicated professionals and students.

Respectfully,
Marvin Garcia