NEIUPI

Please find the message from John Miller, the UPI Legislative Chair, about pending legislative actions that may remove the 50% tuition waiver benefit for all university employees. It will affect all NEIU employees so it is important to share this with all members of our community. Here’s the message and requested actions to be taken:

Greetings everyone,
Today, we are asking you to:

1. Call your State Representative
2. “Like” the Save our Waivers Facebook page
3. Share this message with your colleagues at your home institution and across the state.

As you may be aware, HB 5531 is scheduled to be called in the House’s Executive Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 29. This bill “repeals provisions that permit the children of employees of a state university who have been employed by any one or by more than one state university for an aggregate period of at least seven years to receive a 50% tuition waiver. Effective immediately.” I cannot emphasize enough how important this benefit is to many of our members and colleagues across the state. Over the last several weeks, I have received many messages from university employees explaining how their children would not be able to attend a state university without the assistance of this benefit. Additionally, several faculty and staff indicated that they would consider employment at other universities outside of the state if this benefit is repealed. For the sake of our children, our colleagues,and for the quality of public higher education in the state of Illinois, we need to act, now.

The General Assembly is not is session on Monday. This is the perfect day to call your state representative at his or her home district office and ask them to contact the members on the House Executive Committee to vote NO on HB 5531. Our message is very simple:
1. Ask your state representative to please contact members of the House’s Executive Committee to vote NO on HB 5531.
2. Tuition waivers are an inexpensive yet important benefit for state university employees.
3. Tuition waivers help keep our kids in Illinois state universities instead of looking out of state where we can also get in-state tuition rates.
4. Tuition waivers help attract and retain quality faculty and staff at our state universities.
5. Ending the tuition waiver violates an agreement the state made with its employees. Many of us are counting on this benefit to send our own kids to an Illinois state university and will have no means of sending them to school if the state repeals this benefit.

Remember,when contacting your State Representative, please be polite and positive and use your personal phone or email. The person who is answering the phone is working for a living just like you and I. We need their support and a positive and pleasant manner goes a long way. After all, they will be receiving lots of phone calls on this issue today if we all take just a view minutes.

Not sure how to get in contact with your State Representative? It is easy. The Illinois State Board of Elections has a great resource to help you find both the phone number and email address. Remember, try to call your Representative in his or her home district office on Monday. After Monday, you should call his or her Springfield number.

Click Here to Find Your State Representative and Contact Information.

After you have finished calling your state representative, join our Facebook page. Let us know why the tuition waiver is important to you. Also, let us know how your State Representative responded to your message.

Click Here to Join our Save Our Waivers Facebook Page.

Finally,we cannot win this issue alone. We need as many people to call, email and to join our Facebook page. Besides forwarding this to your colleagues regardless of their position at the university, also “Share” our Facebook page. The more people who get involved, the stronger our voice will be.

Monday is only step one of our campaign. On Tuesday and Wednesday we will send a new email message to ask you to contact member of the House’s Executive Committee directly.

Thank you for your support and action.

You may be interested in the following event hosted by the NEIU chapter of AFSCME. The announcement is from the NEIU chapter president, Ellen Larrimore. Remember union or not, we’re all in this together. Here is Ellen’s message…

Hello all-

We’ve scheduled a brown-bag forum on “Preserving Our University Pensions” for Wed Mar 7th in B 146, 12-1PM. Hank Scheff, the Director of Employee Benefits at AFSCME Council 31, will be on hand to help us address the question “Can We Save Our Pensions?” Bring your lunch if you like.

This forum is open to all staff and faculty. Please help us spread the word—a flyer is attached for posting.

Ellen

Ellen M Larrimore
Pres. AFSCME Local 1989
x4402

The new contract language about the re-employment roster for instructors is the same as it was in previous contracts. You must notify your department chair that you wish to be re-employed for the next academic year. You must do this by February 15. I have included the relevant contract language from Article 31 below.

(c) Re-employment Roster for Instructors

(1) By February 15 of each academic year, individuals holding Instructor appointments shall notify, electronically or in writing, the Chair of the Department in which they hold their appointment if they wish to be considered during the subsequent academic year for any available Instructor appointment for which they are qualified.

(2) The Instructor is responsible for maintaining her/his directory information on the University’s portal.

(3) By March 15, the Department Chair shall develop a listing of all Instructors wishing to have appointments in the Department in the subsequent academic year. To be placed on the Re-employment roster, an Instructor must have received a satisfactory evaluation as conducted in accordance with the Article on Evaluation and Evaluation Criteria in this Agreement. Any Instructor receiving a rating of unsatisfactory will not be placed on the Re-employment roster except for Instructors with 5 or more years of service with satisfactory ratings in each of the five years; they will be placed on a one-year probationary status. Such probationary Instructors shall retain their position on the reemployment roster. If the subsequent evaluation is again unsatisfactory they will be removed from the roster; if it is satisfactory they will be removed from probation and retained on the roster. Position on the roster shall be determined by seniority of years of service or by lottery when service dates are the same.Percentage of employment shall not affect placement on the Re-employment roster.

There are two UPI membership meetings this week to announce the slate of candidates for the upcoming elections for the UPI local and the NEIU chapter. Candidates may be nominated at the meeting. Our final list of candidates is due to the local on Friday, Feb 17.

The presentation of the candidates is the only item on the agenda. If you have an item you will to have discussed, please forward it to me for inclusion on the agenda.

The meetings are scheduled as follows:

Wednesday, Feb. 15 from 2-3:15 pm in LWH 1001
Thursday, Feb. 16 from 3-4:15 pm in LWH 1001

COLUMBIA, Mo. – A man who led Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago for nearly a decade and served as an interim chancellor of the University of Missouri system and other intuitions has died.

Current University of Missouri interim President Steve Owens released a statement Thursday night announcing that Gordon Lamb died Monday. He was 77.

System spokeswoman Jennifer Hollingshead said in an email that she didn’t know where he died or his cause of death.

Read more at the Daily Herald…