Southern Illinois has a twisted and brutal history of labor conflict. While the coal industry has withered in that part of the state, loyalties still often lie with private labor in their battles with company management. Perhaps the faculty at Southern Illinois University thought they could capitalize on those sympathies when the professors’ union went on strike earlier this week. The move backfired. From the editorial board of the Southern Illinoisan, the largest daily in the region.
Our view: Striking faculty members at SIU Carbondale have no valid issues. They should return to the classroom today or be replaced Monday.
Our region is chronically beset with poverty and joblessness – troubles exacerbated by the nation’s deep and long recession. Employment at SIU is a career goal for many, a source of envy for many more…
What actually is being sought, and won’t be attained, are ridiculous demands they say are not financial.
In their own words, the FA said it has been offered raises of 0, 1, 1 and 2 percent in the coming four years of a proposed contract. When was your last raise? Can you even remember?
The people holding pickets, or raising their puny clenched fists are privileged to live in the Ivory Tower of Academia. In their previous four-year contract, FA members got raises of 3 percent in 2007, 3 percent in 2008, 3 percent in 2009 and 3.5 percent in 2010. FA members work nine months per year and have the ability to earn more than $135,000 for that period of time – though most make less.
A study printed in the fall of 2010 determined 220 full professors were paid an average $101,385 per nine-month teaching year; 292 associate professors $73,961 for the same time period; and 265 assistant professors $63,438…
If you’re lucky enough to have a job, are you making that kind of money? Would you even consider striking if you’d been offered raises for the coming years – on the heels of raises totaling 12.5 percent from 2007-10.
Jobs are not easily attained and quickly lost in a faltering economy. It is a lesson learned through the affairs of life, a painful reality that soon may confront faculty members foolish enough to honor an ill-considered strike.*
I’m an SIUC alum. While I was in school there, the faculty was threatening to go on strike. Then, as now, the demands of the union seemed vastly out of touch.
As I write this, news is breaking that the strike will end. It’s not hard to see why: a sustained strike on campus would have become a statewide controversy. Considering the ongoing legislative battle in Springfield over pension and retirement benefits, the government labor unions would not want striking university professors as the face of civil service in Illinois.
* The entire editorial is a tour de force, well worth the read.